HarperCollins Publishers Inc Best Little Motel in Texas: A Novel

USA Today Bestseller "A sharp, funny mystery bursting with heart and small-town secrets. I adored every page of The Best Little Motel in Texas - pure escapist joy with a wicked edge." Joanna Wallace, author of You'd Look Better as a Ghost "An overall, absolute delight." - Booklist, starred review A charming, edgy mystery about a young woman who unexpectedly inherits the best little motel in Texas replete with a feisty set of golden working girls, a poisoned priest, and a sleepy hometown thrown into chaos. After a childhood spent combing the dive bars of Sarsaparilla Falls to collect her fun-loving momma, Cordelia West now enjoys a simple, respectable life in Dallas. Then one phone call from the hometown shes spent years trying to forget throws it into chaos. Cordelia's great-aunt Penelope has passed away, naming Cordelia the sole heir to the Chickadee Motel. She has no memory of a great-aunt and no interest in hospitality, but the will stipulates that the motel cant be sold until its residents leave or pass away so she reluctantly heads back down to Sarsaparilla Falls to figure out who's living in the Chickadee, and how to get them out. But upon her arrival, Cordelia discovers the Chickadee isnt a motelits a brothel, housing three women in their sixties known as the Chicks. For decades, Daisy, Arline, and Belinda Sue have entertained the men of Sarsaparilla Falls (with their wives blessings)including the upright Pastor Reed-Smythe, who thunders against the towns favorite sins when hes not indulging. Cordelia doesnt want to be a hotel manager or a madam, but she cant just sell the only home the Chicks have knownespecially not after the pastor is found poisoned in Daisys bed. With the Chicksand the townon the verge of a breakdown, Cordelia steps up to mop up the mess. For a small town, there are plenty of suspects: could it be the obsessed nurse with access to arsenic? Developers eager to gobble up the land? The righteously angry town librarian? Things are heating up in Sarsaparilla Falls, and with the Pastors obnoxiously attractive son ArcherCordelias childhood nemesisinvestigating the Chicks and getting close, straightlaced Cordelia may just have to get a little dirty to make a killer come clean. Autorid: Lyla Lane