Monday 14 July 2014

Book ~ "Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray" (2012) Diane Kelly

From Goodreads ~ When you’re an agent for the IRS, it’s always tax time. And this season, Tara Holloway is up to her neck in work with two very knotty cases. One involves a charismatic minister who’s using his mega-church as a tax shelter. The other is a crazy militant who’s trying to turn Texas into a separate country. With her boyfriend out of town and her partner reassigned, Tara is on her own - and things are getting hairy. 

If dealing with the Lone Star State isn’t enough, Tara has other new issues to take into account: There’s a sexy new agent named Nick, who’s got her head in the clouds ... and Tara’s boss, Lu, who’s having a hair problem of epic proportions: not even her Chinese contraband industrial-strength hairspray is enough to keep her signature strawberry blonde beehive from falling flat. Can Tara help Lu find a wig - and keep from wigging out over Nick? Love, updos, taxes—this time, Tara’s got a whole lot of kinks to iron out.

Tara's boss, Lu, is battling cancer and is having treatment.  Tara's partner, Eddie, is doing Lu's job while she's off.  Because of this, Tara, an IRS agent, has been partnered with Nick who she is feeling a strong attraction to ... and the feeling is more than mutual.  Tara, though, is dating Brett, who has to go out of town for a month.  She becomes torn between staying with Brett and seeing where things go or going with Nick who seems like a better fit.

Tara and Nick tackle two dusty cases.  August is an old militant who wants to turn Texas into its own nation and hasn't paid his taxes in a while.  Though they capture August, there are repercussions for Tara as the rest of the Lone Star Nation put a lien on her house and move to have her evicted.  The other case is that of a TV evangelist who is using his congregations' contributions to pay for his extravagant lifestyle and not paying any taxes.  The fallout for Tara is that his flock call her names that God-fearing people shouldn't utter every chance they get.

This is the third book in the Tara Holloway series (and the third book I've read by this author).  I read the first one in the series a couple weeks ago but haven't read the second one (yet!) ... they work as stand alones as there was enough information from the past ones so you know what's going on. 

I enjoyed this one.  I liked the writing style ... it was funny and sarcastic.  It is written in first person perspective from Tara's point of view.  As a head's up, there is some swearing and explicit adult situations.

I liked Tara and Nick, who are the main characters in this book.  They seem like they would be good together ... too bad she'd met Brett first.  There's nothing wrong with Brett but he just seems kind of blah compared to Nick.  You'll have to read it to see who she ends up with!

2 comments:

Masshole Mommy said...

Sounds like a great summer read!

Jay said...

I'm in bed recuperating from surgery and running low on books...thanks for the recommendation, Teena!