Margarita Nights

I signed up with NetGalley.com and requested several galleys, with Margarita Nights being the first I read. The following blurb is from the NetGalley press kit.

MARGARITA NIGHTS is a debut novel by Phyllis Smallman, and our first encounter with amateur sleuth Sherri Travis.

The bar in Jacaranda, Florida may be upscale, but Sherri Travis is from the side of town where luxury is an extra wide trailer. She is separated from her husband Jimmy Travis, who comes from Jacaranda's social register, and there's only one thing Sherri and her mother-in-law agree on: she and Jimmy shouldn't be together.

Sherri wants Jimmy out of her life but he won't stay gone, so when Jimmy and his boat, the Suncoaster, explodes in an orange ball of fire, the police come calling. There's a witness who puts Sherri on the Suncoaster hours before it went boom. Add a quarter million dollar insurance policy, and Sherri becomes the suspect du jour.

Sherri didn't do it, but as she digs through the debris of Jimmy's life, she discovers more than a few people who wanted Jimmy dead.

I really enjoyed Margarita Nights. Sherri Travis is laugh out loud funny and all of her antics kept me laughing through the entire book. Her belief that Jimmy is faking his death truly sounded plausible based on the history between them. As Sherri is the prime suspect in Jimmy’s murder, it is up to her and her friends to clear her name. With a supporting cast of characters that fit so perfectly in the small island town of Jacaranda, FL, Smallman gives the reader a great mystery with a touch of romance.