Bad Hair Days Mysteries - Nancy J. Cohen

Nancy J. Cohen is an award-winning author who writes romance and mysteries. Her humorous Bad Hair Day mystery series features hairdresser Marla Shore, who solves crimes with wit and style under the sultry Florida sun. Several of these titles have made the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list.



1. Permed to Death: Sassy salon owner Marla Shore is giving grumpy Mrs. Kravitz a perm when the old lady croaks in the shampoo chair. If that isn’t enough to give her a bad hair day, handsome Detective Vail suspects Marla of poisoning the woman’s coffee creamer. Figuring she’d better expose the real killer before the next victim frizzes out, Marla sets on the trail of a wave of wacky suspects.



2. Hair Raiser: When salon owner and hairstylist Marla Shore volunteers for a fund-raiser, she has to comb through a knot of suspects to determine who’s sabotaging the gala event. Participating chefs are dropping off the roster like hot rollers, and it’s only through a series of hair-raising exploits that the brazen beautician can tease the truth from them. Too late to stop a murder, Marla must salvage the grand affair before she’s moussed into oblivion.



3. Murder by Manicure: Stylist Marla Shore is back with another nail-biting tale of murder. Since beauty is her business, salon owner Marla Shore figures she can surely rid herself of a few excess pounds of holiday flab without joining a gym. But when daily walks with her slowpoke poodle fail to whittle her waistline, Marla reluctantly gives in to a trial membership at Perfect Fit Sports Club. She never dreamed that slimming down would mean running into a deadly case of foul play. Marla's in the middle of her body fat analysis session when the blood-curdling screams of a hysterical patron send her charging to the "wet area." It seems that after ingesting a gelatin capsule to strengthen her nails, Jolene Myers slipped into a whirlpool--and drowned beneath the swirling waters. Marla isn't the only one in sunny Palm Haven who sees a dark cloud hovering over her former client's demise. Homicide Detective Dalton Vail is convinced Jolene's death was no accident--and Marla intends to join forces with him and give her deductive skills a workout. Marla quickly discovers that there's no shortage of suspects. Apparently, Jolene didn't have many fans at the tony sports club. Furthermore, somebody apparently swapped her nail-strengthening capsule for a poisonous gelcap. A likely candidate is the victim's pal Hank Goodfellow, a philandering pharmacist who hardly lives up to his name. But Jolene also had her share of spats with bribe-accepting city councilman Wallace Ritiker, vocal animal rights activist Cookie Calcone, Dancercise instructor Lindsey Trotter, and realtors Sam and Eloise Zelman. Then there's massage therapist Slate Harper, whom Jolene jilted one too many times--and who reportedly went from smitten to stalker. With a second corpse on her manicured hands, Marla would like nothing more than to nail the killer and wrap the case. But things are shaping up to be more complicated than she or Vail ever imagined--and unless Marla exercises the utmost caution, the next buff body on its way to the morgue will be hers.



4. Body Wave: Stylist Marla Shore goes undercover in a hair-brained scheme to catch a killer in her latest South Florida adventure. In a story braided with unexpected twists and curls, she takes on a role as nurse’s aide for wealthy Miriam Pearl. While Marla snoops into the elderly matriarch’s affairs, her friend Detective Vail is afraid that the only affair she’ll snag is with her ex-spouse, Stan. Juggling work at her salon, crime solving, and two amorously inclined males, Marla fights a race against time to save Stan before the dashing detective nails him for murder.



5. Highlights to Heaven: Professional hair stylist and amateur sleuth Marla Shore lands a case close to home when her pet loving neighbour, a man aptly named Goat, disappears, leaving his animals and a dead body - behind. The corpse might be just another anonymous stiff except for the distinctive highlighting in his hair. Marla immediately recognizes the signature technique of Ft. Lauderdale's Heavenly Hair Salon and the work of stylist Cutter Corrigan. Curiosity - and a desire to impress sexy Detective Dalton Vail - motivate Marla to question the proprietor of Heavenly Hair before the police do. And before she even leaves the murder scene, Marla makes another a grisly discovery that suggests the killing involves the exotic pet trade, where fancy fur coats are illegally made from local Tabbies and Rovers.



6. Died Blonde: There's no love lost between Marla and Carolyn Sutton. Carolyn has never forgiven Marla for leaving Hairstyle Heaven to open her own place, especially since Marla's clientele grew as Carolyn's faded away. Carolyn retaliated by relocating near Marla, but couldn't put the highlights back in the balance sheet. Still, it's a nasty shock when Marla enters the meter room behind the shopping center that houses both salons and tumbles over her rival's body. Carolyn's neck is broken and a hank of her hair is missing. Marla's powerful curiosity would have been enough to send her snooping for clues, but when Detective Dalton Vail, her very significant other, actually asks her for help, nothing can hold her back. Her quest becomes even more personal when Wilda Cleaver, Carolyn's trusted psychic and new owner of her salon, insists that Carolyn's spirit is begging Marla to solve her murder. Adding a dose of blackmail, Wilda warns that someone Marla loves is in great danger but won't give details until Marla cracks the case. Marla's got her work cut out for her-poor Carolyn was far from popular...and maybe even farther from honest. There's Carolyn's snubbed sister, Linda, who only inherited an unspecified, "valuable" collection that appears to be missing, the chiropractor whose shady dealings Carolyn had uncovered, and the immigration lawyer who apparently had been issuing suspicious visas for Hairstyle Heaven's French-born staff. Add to all this some surprising news from Detective Vail and a blossoming romance for Marla's mother, and Marla's well-coiffed head is soon spinning. It will take all her skill to untangle the snarl of suspects, trim the list down to unmask the murderer-and learn what's behind Wilda's eerie premonitions before someone Marla loves is next.



7. Dead Roots: Marla Shore thought the only tricky part of the reunion at Florida's historic Sugar Crest Plantation Resort would be introducing her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail, to her family. . .and vice versa. But that was before her Aunt Polly was found suffocated in her bed.

It turns out that her family has a tangle of ties connected to Sugar Crest, including Aunt Polly's father, who once owned the plantation--and hid a fortune in gems somewhere on the grounds. And though Sugar Crest is slated for demolition, many people would profit if it wasn't destroyed . . . and some just might go to any lengths to make sure it remains standing . . .

To top it all off, the plantation was built on an Indian burial mound, which Marla knows is just never a good idea--and then the grounds keeper turns up dead! Whatever is going on at Sugar Crest, someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep it hidden. But he or she hasn't planned on Marla, who will stop at nothing to learn the truth before the killer strikes again . . .



8. Perish by Pedicure: “The perfect read for a beach chair or under the hair dryer.”--Nancy MartinFire up the flat iron and break out the bullet-proof blow drier, because Marla Shore—the sassy, South Florida beauty salon owner with a knack for fixing hair and finding trouble—is back…Beauty shows are not always known for cold-blooded murder, but that’s exactly the case when Luxor Products company director Christine Parks is found dead in her hotel room—facedown in a foot bath.It doesn’t take long into Marla’s investigation to discover that everyone who worked with Christine had a reason to hate her. From serial cheating to indulging in blackmail and bad investment advice, she was a walking Bad Hair Day, and the list of possible suspects is longer than a pop diva’s hair extensions. And when a model with top-secret information for Marla turns up dead, things go from bad to worse in a hurry. Behind the thumping house music and dazzling, high-platform hair tricks of Florida’s hottest beauty show, something very ugly is going down, something that goes beyond polish and style to the killer-takes-all ambition of the beauty biz. If Marla isn’t careful, she just may end up on the wrong end of a murderer’s very skillful hands…



9. Killer Knots: Marla Shore puts down her curling iron and picks up her skills at detection when she books passage on a cruise ship with a killer aboard. Soon it's full steam ahead toward mayhem and murder...in a case sure to have Marla going off the deep end. Scissor-wielding sleuth Marla Shore is looking forward to a leisurely cruise with her fiancé Dalton Vail. Too bad Dalton's teenage daughter and his parents are along for the ride. Instead of a seduction at sea, Marla is meeting the in-laws and hoping nothing goes too terribly wrong. It's a vain hope. A mysterious envelope stuck into her cabin door reads: I know what you did and I have what you want. If it hadn't been addressed to "Martha" Shore and obviously delivered by mistake, Marla might have feared it referred to the nudie pictures buried in her past. But that embarrassment would have been better than what the note does foretell: troubled water lies ahead. So instead of cruise control, Marla's on high alert, searching for the note's intended recipient before the cruise goes down the drain. If Marla doesn't find the culprit fast, this spunky stylist could end up with her own split end: caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.