Wake Up and Smell the Corpse (Hardcover)

Take one coffee shop. Stir in two dysfunctional semi-alcoholic forty-something female friends, a cup of neurotic customers, a scoop of incompetent teenage employees, and a generous sprinkling of animosity. Voila! The perfect recipe for murder. "Wake up and Smell the Corpse" is a character-driven comedy/mystery with two dysfunctional, sexually-frustrated protagonists, Madison (Maddy) and Chloe, best friends with bad taste in men who travel through life with brains clouded by dirty martinis and Jack Daniels and Coke. Their insatiable need for chaos leads them to embark on opening a coffee house with no business sense, and no money, in an unsophisticated town not ready for $5 lattes - or them. While sailing on their entrepreneurial ship of hope, they haphazardly discover three murder victims, all in a bizarre manner, and all patrons of their shop. The first victim, Tanya-Colette (T.C.), is discovered when Maddy trips on her stilettos and falls between T.C.'s enormous fake breasts. The second victim, one of their favorite customers, is discovered when Maddy goes into an alley to relieve herself unaware that the body is in striking distance. The third victim is discovered when Maddy and Chloe break into his house to make sure he's all right. Maddy trips over his body and while nudging him to see if hea s alive, gets her stiletto heel stuck in an embarrassing spot. Since the first corpse is found buried in the basement of their coffee house, coupled with the uncanny coincidence of discovering two more bodies, they become prime suspects to the detective assigned to the investigation, who Maddy secretly - she thinks - lusts after. Through sheer drunken wit that would baffle Sherlock Holmes, thetwo stumble to prove their innocence and almost become victims four and five.