Liar, Liar: A Cat DeLuca Mystery

Summary

Caterina DeLuca, burned by her run-around now ex-husband, Johnnie Ricco, took the skills she mastered during marriage and opened her own private-eye agency. Now she’s armed with a camera, ready to print the evidence on 8 × 10 glossies for use in divorce court. The men in her big, crazy family, all Chicago cops and one a crook, aren’t sure what to make of Cat’s career choice. But hey, it’s serve and protect!

Then one Rita Polansky retains Cat. Rita’s liar-liar husband is the mysterious but seriously hot Chance Savino. Cat is in fact hot on his heels when an exploding building hurls her out of her stilettos and into the hospital. The FBI claims Savino was killed in the fireworks, but Cat’s memory replays a different scenario.

She escapes the hospital to meet with her client, another liar. When Rita doesn’t show, Cat breaks into her home to find a dead Rita, a knife in her chest, and two clues at the murder scene: a clutch of Starburst candy wrappers—and Chance Savino, rummaging through Rita’s drawers.

As one surprise after another piles up and no one else sights Savino, everyone around Cat thinks she’s nuts—everyone except a determined killer who has put her on his “kill” list. Botched attempts force Cat to suspect Johnnie Ricco, or liar-liars from her earlier cases, or a Chicago power broker.

Can Cat, catcher of cheaters, catch a killer? And even if she does, this is Chicago, so what would she do then?