Bubbles Ablaze [Paperback]

This is the third in the Bubbles series, one of the few series of books that I buy instead of waiting to get them from the library. If you're a fan of authors like Crusie, Evanovich, Heller, Bartholomew, Hayter, etc., you'll love these books. I love this genre--the humorous romantic mystery-and am always on the lookout for new authors to read, and was happy to discover Bubbles a couple of years ago. I totally recommend Bubbles books (Bubbles Unbound, Bubbles in Trouble, and now Bubbles Ablaze) to anyone looking for a fun read.

This is the third entry in a slapdash, over-the-top mystery series featuring Bubbles Yablonsky, a hairdresser who looks like trailer trash but who longs to become a respected journalist. On the way to her goal, she stumbles and bumbles into one mystery after another, with the aid and support of the Mel-Gibson-esque Steve Stilleto, a top-level news photographer, whom she met on her first assignment.

Bubbles lives in a small blue/black-collar town in a part of America usually forgotten - the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Every character has a story connected to mining; Bubbles' father was killed when she was a young girl because, her family believes, he was a union organizer. Steve, the estranged step-son of a ruthless mine owner, hates his connection to the misery wreaked by Big Coal on innocent men and women.

It's almost impossible to describe a Strohmeyer plot; in a review of an earlier book in the series I think I said she used every idea she ever had. In my 40-some years of mystery-reading I can't think of a more convoluted (and somewhat ridiculous and highly unbelievable) plot.

In this outing Bubbles has left hairdressing for journalism and gets involved in a life-threatening, mysterious "accident" in a mine thought to be dormant and where a murder occurs while she and Steve are there after receiving mysterious messages. The race is on, with casino gambling, underground mine fires, a pierogi fight and who-knows-what's-next among the dozen or so plots and sub-plots.

Normally that would bother me. But Strohmeyer has a tremendous gift for creating eccentric characters, ones you usually can't help but love and want more of. Bubbles can spot a phony ten miles away, but her big heart accepts even the strangest individual, if s/he is hurt and honest (except the multi-pierced "G," a suitor for the hand of her beloved, ultra-smart daughter, Jane, whom she has raised single-handedly and for whom she wants a better future than that which Bubbles endured.

Strohmeyer's work resembles that of reigning working-class detectives' Queen Janet Evanovich, but I like Bubbles and her crew more (making me, a NJ native, a traitor of sorts). Their stories, like Bubbles, continue to develop in each book. Your suspension of disbelief will have to be extra-willing at times, but the fun to be had makes it worthwhile.

This one reminds me a bit of Nancy and Ned in the old Nancy Drew books. It's hard to take a mystery seriously when the main character is named Bubbles and the guy's name (well, his last name) is Stiletto. Bubbles, true to her name, looks frothy and wears Spandex, but we're to believe a mind hides beneath the hair spray (reminiscent of Legally Blonde) as she investigates what appears to be theft, extortion and maybe murder.
Totally silly, but fun.