Theo Bogart Mysteries

Former party girl Theophania Bogart is hiding in San Francisco to escape a family scandal, but her carefully-constructed new life is threatened when she sees Tim Callahan fall from a window. The police don't believe his death was an accident, and they seem to think Theo had sufficient motive to wish him dead. And when Theo's friend and business partner is also murdered mere days later, the police start digging even deeper into the secrets Theo's been running from. Theo soon realizes the only way to prove her innocence will be to find the real killer herself. Along the way, Theo has to navigate her best friend, who is one of her prime suspects; her young protégé, who may or may not have a juvie record; her stern and unyielding grandfather, who exposes an unexpected soft center; and the man she found sitting on her washing machine one evening, who isn't quite what he appears, either.

Following Susan Cox's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel award-winning debut, The Man on the Washing Machine, comes her next quirky, charming mystery featuring San Francisco shop owner Theo Bogart. To escape a family scandal in her native England, Theo changed her name and moved to San Francisco, where she runs a soap store called Aromas. But her quiet new life was upended when a murder rocked her neighborhood. Now, just as the dust is settling, Theo's best friend, Nat Moore, finds a human finger in the microwave oven at his coffee shop. Not knowing what it means or what to do, he turns to Theo for help. Meanwhile, Theo's grandfather is disappearing back into the shadowy world he used to inhabit as an agent for the British Secret Service, and he may have brought an even bigger breed of trouble right to Theo's doorstep. Once again Susan Cox has painted a delightful portrait of a colorful San Francisco neighborhood and a woman finding her way through just the kind of scandalous mystery she was trying so hard to leave behind.