I chose this book because E.J. Copperman writes fun cozy mysteries and I was curious about the debut of this new series. I wasn't disappointed because the story is a hoot.
*****
New York City residents Fran and Ken Stein, siblings who own K&F Stein Investigations, aren't your average private detectives. Fran - who's unusually tall and strong - can easily lift two tattooed wise guys by the front of their T-shirts, one on each arm, and keep them dangling a foot off the ground. And Ken is even bigger and tougher. In addition, both siblings have heightened senses that can detect much more than other people.
That's because Fran and Ken aren't your average humans. They were put together - Frankenstein-like - from body parts and tissues grown in the lab. The siblings' parents - Brandon Wilder, a skilled surgeon; and Olivia Grey, a brilliant scientist - had wanted children but couldn't conceive. So the doctor and researcher made their own babies, who grew up just like other humans. The one big difference: Fran and Ken have to plug themselves into an electric outlet every few days to keep their systems active.
Unfortunately, Brandon Wilder and Olivia Grey had to go on the run after creating the children, to keep certain persons from finding the kids and grabbing them for study. So Fran and Ken were raised by a woman called Aunt Margie, and the fiction was spread that their parents had died in a car accident.
The siblings believed they were orphans until their pre-teens, when they learned their parents were alive somewhere in the world. Fran and Ken made it their mission to find their mom and dad, and as young adults they opened K&F Stein Investigations, which specializes in finding birth parents for adopted children.
One day a client named Evelyn Bannister.....
.....hires the K&F Stein agency to find a ukulele, a relatively rare Gibson Poinsettia with hand-painted flowers and fret markers.
Evelyn explains that the ukulele could lead to her birth father, who (she learned) collects rare stringed instruments. Fran and Ken accept the job, and oddly enough, the ukulele turns out to have a connection with the siblings' own birth parents. So the task appears to be something of a twofer.
The search for the Gibson leads to all manner of trouble, including threats, murders, abductions, mysterious phone messages, and bodily harm - mostly inflicted on other people....like the time Fran throws a roller skater into a would-be kidnapper and knocks his teeth out.
While all this is going on, Fran is being romantically pursued by a nice-looking (but shortish) Police Detective called Rich Mankiewicz....
....and Ken has an unrequited passion for the receptionist he hired, a Romanian woman called Igavda who's 'built like a brick gulag' and speaks only broken English.
As you might imagine, the story is chock full of humor and snide comments, mostly made by Fran about her brother.
For instance, when Ken wants to attend a funeral he has no business at, Fran tries to dissuade him because 'the family needs anything but the Incredible Hulk hanging out at the funeral and asking them questions'; and Fran observes that 'Ken eats Kit Kats by just biting into them. Everyone else on planet Earth breaks each row off and eats it separately. My brother just chomps away at it. Truly, there are days when I despair for him.'
The book isn't high drama, but it's a fun mystery with unique protagonists and an interesting array of characters. Highly recommended to fans of humorous cozies.
Thanks to Netgalley, E.J. Copperman, and Severn House for a copy of the manuscript.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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