Living the Vida Lola by Misa Ramirez

From the Publisher

Meet Lola Cruz. After paying her dues as an intern, she’s now a full-fledged detective at Camacho and Associates. Her boss is Manny Camacho, a muy caliente former cop with a mysterious ex-wife, a Lara Croft look-alike girlfriend, and a sudden personal interest in Lola. Her first big case? A missing mother who may not want to be found. And to make her already busy life even more complicated, Lola’s helping her cousin plan her quinceañera, and battling her family and their old-fashioned views on women and careers. She’s also reunited with the gorgeous Jack Callaghan, her high school crush whom she shamelessly tailed years ago and photographed doing the horizontal salsa with some other lucky girl.

Lola takes it all in stride, but when the subject of her search ends up dead, she realizes she has a lot more to worry about. Soon she finds herself wrapped up in the possibly shady practices of a tattoo parlor, local politics, and someone with serious---maybe deadly---road rage. To top it all off, her treasured postcoital pictures of Jack are missing! Still, Lola is well-equipped to handle these challenges. She's a black-belt in kung fu, and her body isn’t her only weapon. She’s got smarts, sass, and more tenacity than her Mexican mafioso-wannabe grandfather. A few of her famous margaritas don’t hurt, either.

Debut author Misa Ramirez, a blond-haired, green-eyed gal with a passion for the Latino culture and authentic Mexican food, has penned a delicious mix of mystery, romance, and all-out fun. Filled with sizzling scenes and side-splitting humor, Living the Vida Lola is a thrilling ride that will have you up all night.

Publishers Weekly

Ramirez's muy caliente debut introduces Dolores "Lola" Falcón Cruz, a Sacramento, Calif., PI whose kung fu moves are only part of her chica charm. A missing persons case-the disappearance of 42-year-old Emily Diggs, who left her six-year-old son, Sean, stranded at school-turns into a murder investigation after a boater finds Emily's body near Riverbank Marina. Lola's old high school crush, Jack Callaghan, now a Sacramento Bee reporter, provides some unexpected help. Emily had approached Jack about her 18-year-old son Garrett's recent death-from what Emily believed was a "heart infection" due to a faulty tattoo. Lola's determined to uncover the facts and catch the killer, even if it means, gulp, getting a girly belly-button piercing. Ramirez keeps the action tight, the plot smart and humor light in this spicy blend of crime solving and romance. Lola's latina perspective adds extra sizzle. (Jan.)

Kirkus Reviews

A hormonally supercharged private eye seeks a lost mom while lusting after the man of her dreams. Lola Cruz is thrilled. Her boss Manny, owner of Camacho and Associates, is finally letting her solve a case. Emily Diggs's brother wants to know where she is and why she's disappeared, abandoning her six-year-old. Tucked into the missing woman's journal is a business card from Jack Callaghan, whom Lola's panted over for years. In between entertaining overheated fantasies of Jack, Lola learns that Emily thought her older son Garrett died from tainted tattooing, that her daughter Allison worked at the tattoo parlor he frequented and that little Sean was the result of a failed interracial romance. Lola's car is bashed. She's locked in a florist's refrigerator. Her brother, mistaken for her, winds up in the hospital. But still those fantasies about Jack persist, although fulfillment has to be deferred while Lola sidesteps a sarcastic co-worker, plans a birthday celebration for her niece, learns that two more victims have died and attacks a killer with a borrowed baseball bat while Jack is getting shot up. A series debut with too much icky love stuff and too little mystery. In Lola's favor, however, is a speed-dating pace and lots of nice underwear. Agent: Holly Root/Waxman Literary Agency

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