Sarah Strohmeyer — Bubbles in Trouble

Headline (UK) 2003 Paperback, 352pp. Bubbles Yablonsky is in trouble. Her exposé of corruption in Lehigh’s social heights has infuriated the local paper’s editor, so she’s still a full-time hairdresser and only an occasional reporter. Her freeloading ex is back on her sofa after his socialite wife threw him out, her daughter’s in love, and her mother thinks she’s Jackie O. Plus Bubbles’s chastity vow is not yet broken, which means sexy photographer Steve Stiletto’s heart has remained just out of reach. Then her pool-table-top rendition of Free Bird at a drunken hen party gives the bride-to-be second thoughts. Bubbles is blamed when Janice never arrives in church, and goes to investigate. She finds Janice’s home empty – apart from the murdered body of her uncle Elwood. Bubbles suspects this could make a great story, and she wants her friend back. But tracking Janice down won’t be easy. Following her to Whoopee, Pennsylvania, Bubbles must go undercover as an Amish woman, with no hairdryer, no make-up and no lycra – her idea of hell. But if the murderer finds out who Bubbles really is, being caught au naturel will be the least of her worries. (ISBN: 9780747267768). Good.