Murder, Curlers & Camp: A Valentine Beaumont Mystery

McFarlane’s crafty seventh cozy featuring Massachusetts beautician Valentine Beaumont (after Murder, Curlers & Kites) takes the amateur sleuth out of state and out of her comfort zone. Valentine runs a hair salon in Rueland, a Boston suburb, and is entangled in an intense romance with former NYPD detective Michael Romero. Hoping to improve her bottom line, she brings three of her employees along to a team-building camp in California. There, someone sabotages a human slingshot ride intended as a trust exercise, and Valentine once again leaps into the role of investigator. Then one of the women attending the camp is murdered, possibly with a pair of Valentine’s own thinning shears, and she becomes the prime suspect. To clear her name, she must draw on her detecting skills while keeping her rambunctious colleagues in check. McFarlane’s own cosmetology expertise adds welcome authenticity to the gleeful and goofy proceedings. Fans of Sarah Strohmeyer’s Bubbles Yablonsky series will eat this up. (Self-published)