Death, Taxes and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly

Tara Holloway is a special agent on the IRS's payroll and she makes sure that you  pay your taxes; and keeps her finger on the pulse her love life at the same time.  After all, she needs one!

After being attacked by a small-time tax cheat who slices her wrist open with a box-cutter, Tara is put onto a case where she has to be under cover with an agent from the DEA.  They are tailing - of all people - an ice-cream man who is suspected of selling drugs from his truck in the poorest area of town.  And Tara and her partner for this case get down and dirty dressing in clothes she'd rather give to charity; and dressing like anyone but herself.

While she's working this case, an even bigger case falls in her lap; in the shape of a handsome, well-built landscape gardener called Brett.  He's working for some really big, dirty scammers who are stealing money off the retired folks and leaving them with empty bank accounts and nothing to live on.  But with Brett in her sights as a possible hotty to land, the small-time drug-dealer ice-cream man to bust, can Tara really handle everything on her plate right now?  Can she trust Brett with her heart and with what her job is?  Or is Brett in cahoots with the scammers and will she have to arrest the man who has become a big part of her world?

I won this book on The Romance Bandits site and thought it was the typical run-of-the-mill romance.  But before I turned the first page, I was laughing out loud!  By the end of chapter one, I was really gunning for main character (literally; as she can shoot a gun!) and by the time Tara met Brett and scored her first kiss, I wanted to meet the guy and steal him off her... only kidding.  Before I knew it I was putting aside an hour or two to read this book and today I finished it!  What a funny, sassy, hot book to read; and a great spin to put on romances.  I swear that I won't look at romance novels the same again.

Diane Kelly is a tax attorney by day, a writer by night.  A recipient of the 2009 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award for Best Novel with Strong Romantic Element, she has received more than two dozen RWA chapter awards.  Diane's fiction, tax and humor pieces have appeared in True Love magazine, Writer's Digest Yearbook, Romance Writers' Report, Byline magazine and other publications.  'Death Taxes and a French Manicure' is her first mystery novel, with more in the series to come.