Wash and Die: a Charlotte LaRue Mystery

by: Barbara Colley

Published by: Kensington Books

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

The seventh Charlotte LaRue mystery, Wash and Die is set in New Orleans.

Charlotte comes home from one of her cleaning jobs to find a shadowy figure waiting on her porch–Joyce Thibodeaux, the alcoholic ex-wife of her good friend and tenant Louis Thibodeaux. They had last seen Joyce when she was hauled off to be hospitalized for her addictions, and Charlotte knows her course of treatment is not over. How did Joyce get out? Joyce has a good story, and ends up in Charlotte’s guest room for a few days.

Ex-cop Louis is out of town for his private security firm business. A day earlier, Charlotte had noticed a strange man watching the house from his car, and when she confronted him, she finds out he is a police detective looking for a criminal. Could it be Joyce? Joyce seems to be the same old untrustworthy person.

Charlotte discovers that the gold watch her father left her is missing, and she had seen Joyce leaving a pawnshop in the Quarter. She finds Joyce drinking and insists she leave. Coming home the next day, she discovers the door open, her place trashed, and Joyce dead on the floor. And, Sweety Boy, her beloved parakeet is missing from his cage!

Louis is supposed to have arrived home, but no one can find him, and the police consider Charlotte and Louis “persons of interest!” Charlotte won’t stand for that and begins sleuthing on her own, starting with the hospital ward where Joyce was last staying. Something odd is going on there, involving missing jewelry. One of the nurses senses Charlotte is not quite the cleaning lady she is pretending to be, and follows her to the basement and goes after her with a syringe.

Or was Joyce killed because of her work in California, with an undercover policeman?

Louis is discovered in the hospital, where he went due to chest pains. In the midst of all this chaos, her first grandchildren are born, and Charlotte is ecstatic. Will she have time to help with her grandchildren, set her house right, find her parakeet, and the killer?

Armchair Interviews says: All those questions should make anyone want to read this.

Author’s Web site: http://www.BarbaraColley.com