Perseverance Press (Trade Paperback), ISBN 1-880284-42-1
I took one look at the cover, stared at the huge, green frog, and knew I had to read this mystery. After I read the back cover blurb I couldn't wait to start, and after I started I couldn't put it down until I read the last page.

"Buford the Bullfrog is dead. And that's only the beginning," reads the jacket copy, and for once the jacket copy doesn't exaggerate. Buford's jockey retains private eye Dan Smith, main squeeze of feisty deaf publisher Connor Westphal to find the "murderer."

To help Dan get his…er, whatever, Connor leaps into the festivities surrounding their town's annual Jumping Frog contest. The excitement escalates when a dead man surfaces in Critter Creek along with a whole bunch of dead frogs. Then chili-covered frogs start leaping out of pots at the chili cook-off. And when Connor's new friend, who just happens to be blind, falls ill, and hospitals get involved, the plot really starts jumping.

Sparkling dialog abounds, as does excellent characterization, a plot that hops hither and thither, and a town named Flat Skunk. Blind Side could safely offer a money-back guarantee to amuse, befuddle, and delight. The publisher would never pay a dime.

The fifth book starring the incredible Connor Westphal, the wacky/eccentric inhabitants of the one of the Mother Lode communities, and the foibles and biases of the greedy mayor, Blind Side does Mark Twain one better by adding a new twist to the famed Jumping Frog competition. Twain omitted murder of frog and human, dastardly white collar crime and various assorted mayhem in the original short story based in Calaveras County, but those elements add spice to this book.

If you think you would enjoy meeting a very unlikely heroine, being charmed by her wit and getting introduced to the color green -- as in frog everything from hats to pancakes -- then Blind Side will meet all of your requirements.

Patricia Lucas White

Patricia Lucas White's latest historical novel, To Last a Lifetime, was an Eppie finalist for 2003. To Last a Lifetime and two of her fantasy romances, the Sapphire Award-winning A Wizard Scorned and The Godmother Sanction, can be ordered through Hard Shell Word Factory. Her recent contemporary, PS, I've Taken a Lover, is available from Lionhearted Books.

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