Book ~ "Who Glares Wins" (2012) Camilla Chafer

From Goodreads ~ Only a few weeks into her new job as a private investigator, Lexi Graves thinks she may have bitten off more than she can chew with her first solo cases.

In between going undercover as a plush pony at a “Bronie” conference and following her cheating brother-in-law, she’s got a saboteur-turned-killer to catch and a missing woman to find. Two of her cases may be connected but how?

There’s no short list of suspects to investigate but the closer Lexi gets to the killer, the more her life is put in jeopardy. Trying to avoid being framed for a murder she didn’t commit, Lexi knows her luck is running out.

To make matters worse, her boyfriend, sexy detective, Adam Maddox, thinks she’s out of the PI game faster than she got into it. Her boss, the mysterious Solomon, meanwhile, hopes to get her between the sheets by night, as well as solving cases by day, and Lexi’s "just say no" resolve might not be as fortified as she believes.

All she wants is to be taken seriously and there’s only one way she can do that - solve the cases, no matter what.

Lexi has just started her new job as a private investigator with Solomon. She’s young, inexperienced and underestimated so feels like she has something to prove with the rest of the team. Solomon assigns her an undercover job at a hotel to figure out who is behind the sabotage incidents, which include thefts, work schedules being manipulated and conference reservations being canceled. In addition, she's taken on a couple pro bono cases. One case involves a woman who’s gone missing under suspicious circumstances, which Solomon had said the firm would pass on. She’s also working a personal job for her sister ... following her brother-in-law to confirm he’s cheating. Meanwhile, Lexi’s personal life is just as complicated. She’s torn between her steady detective boyfriend, Adam, and her boss, Solomon.

This story is written in first person perspective in Lexi's voice. I liked the writing style ... it was amusing at times. It wasn't overly deep and was a fairly quick read. Lexi and Lily, her best friend, are 29 and a bit too "boy crazy". Though she's dating Adam, she still thinks about Solomon (who keeps putting the moves on her). It's the second in the Lexi Graves mystery series (there are currently 17 in the series and I read the first one last month) and I liked it enough to keep going with the series.

Book ~ "Armed and Fabulous" (2012) Camilla Chafer

From Goodreads ~ All Lexi wants to do is get through the day at her boring temp job with Green Hand Insurance. That’s until she discovers the vice president, Martin Dean, in a pool of blood and herself at the center of an investigation into insurance fraud.

Millions of dollars are missing, the chief suspect is dead and her mysterious, sexy, new boss is not what he seems.

Recruited by the joint task force working on the case, all Lexi has to do is work out who killed Dean and where the missing millions are. That’s easier said than done when her sister insists upon the baby shower to end all baby showers, her wise-ass cop family just wants to keep her safe, someone keeps leaving her creepy gifts, and all the clues point to a seedy sex club on the wrong side of town.

As the bodies start to pile up, Lexi is on a race against time to find the killer and the money, before she’s the next one in the murderer’s sights.

Lexi is a smart temp who’s underemployed and counting the minutes at her boring insurance job. Her life flips upside down when she discovers her boss, Martin Dean, murdered in his office. Instead of backing away and letting the professionals handle it, Lexi ends up right in the middle. It turns out Dean was involved in major financial fraud, with millions of dollars missing, and Lexi gets pulled into helping a task force unravel what really happened. 

As she digs deeper, the case gets darker and more dangerous. She starts receiving scary gifts, realizes she may have a stalker and learns that the murder is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. On top of that, Lexi is juggling nonstop family pressure (including an overprotective law-enforcement family and having to plan a baby shower for her sister). The deeper Lexi gets, the clearer it becomes that someone is willing to kill to keep the truth buried and and that she might be next.

It took me a couple chapters to get into this book but I kept going and it turned out okay. It's written in first person perspective in Lexi's voice. I liked the writing style ... it was amusing at times. It wasn't overly deep as Lexy and Lily, her best friend and neighbour, seem to be "boy crazy" and juvenile at times. Lexi is attracted to the two cops who are working on the case (and they seem to be attracted to her) ... I hope this doesn't become the focus in future books. Lexi is supposed to be so smart but I had to question some of her decisions.

This is the first in the Lexi Graves mystery series (there are currently 17 in the series) and I liked it enough to check out the next one.