While waiting to clean up the Art Association Festival even that Chloe hosted, Sky finds Realtor Kyle Fipps dead in the hammock of one of the art performance pieces.  Chief Alex Vega tells Sky that Kyle was poisoned with pong pong seeds in the hopes that Sky will not clean away the evidence as she did in Vega’s last homicide.  Sky agrees to be on the look out, but is quickly side-tracked by the arrival of her New Age mother, call-me Betty, sans father, (call me Lou) and the news story Mike is pursuing.  

Mike is on the trail of a scandal that leads directly to city hall and Councilman Tommy Thompson (with whom Sky has an interview for a new cleaning contract) who was involved in the same condominium project that Kyle was and who was rumored to have been keeping company with Sky’s friend Jessie who has inexplicably left town.  Problem is, Mike’s source is Sandy the stripper, also Tommy’s ex-lover. Mike asks Sky to put up Sandy so there are no questions about his and Sandy’s relationship, though Sky has plenty.   

Between Betty-Mom and Sandy as house guests, and searching for the elusive pong pong seeds, Sky has her hands full and she may have just caught the eye of Chief Vega. Sky is a delightful character, though her rambling and tangent tendencies quickly become annoying.  The mystery is pretty easily solved, and readers may question why Sky, who was suspicious of Jessie’s disappearance and generic correspondences, did not make more of an effort to reach out to find her.  Dirty Deeds

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry