Bubbles Unbound

It doesn't help that her name's Bubbles. Or that she's a gum-snapping hairdresser with Barbie-doll curves pinched into hot pants and a tube top. Or that she's saddled with a sleazy ex-hubby, a precocious daughter and a shoplifting mother. What can a beautician do to add new highlights to her image?

For starters, trip over a corpse, and implicate a wealthy town socialite in the crime. Now, with a well-muscled photographer by her side, Bubbles is playing star sleuth. But as the investigation unravels, her shining moment grows as dark as a shopgirl's roots.

However dangerous her new career, at least the hottest graduate of Two Guys Community College is finally busting loose--and this time she's really giving Lehigh, Pennsylvania something to talk about. Sarah Strohmeyer won the 2002 Agatha Award for best first mystery for Bubbles Unbound.