Rocky Start Series by Jennifer Crusie, Bob Mayer, Bob Mayer

Rose Malone’s landlord and employer has just died and now she has no idea if she has a job or if she and her daughter, Poppy, have a place to live, and that’s on top of the arrest warrant that’s been out for her for nineteen years. Then a stranger shows up and tries to throw her out. It just isn’t the week to do that. She smacks him with a reproduction of the Maltese Falcon and then somebody grabs him and throws him into the street.Max Reddy just wants his boots... moreRose Malone’s landlord and employer has just died and now she has no idea if she has a job or if she and her daughter, Poppy, have a place to live, and that’s on top of the arrest warrant that’s been out for her for nineteen years. Then a stranger shows up and tries to throw her out. It just isn’t the week to do that. She smacks him with a reproduction of the Maltese Falcon and then somebody grabs him and throws him into the street.Max Reddy just wants his boots. He’s walking the Appalachian trail with his dog, Maggs, trying to leave behind a life as an elite covert operative, and stopping in Rocky Start to pick up supplies, when he sees a feisty middle-aged woman get backhanded by a guy in a suit. Max throws the jerk into the street and continues on his way, determined to get his boots and get out of town, even if Feisty was pretty cute. He’s been alone on the trail a long time. Some trees are looking good to him.Rose needs to know what’s going on, so she follows Max to the post office, no ulterior motive, honest. Except to pick his pocket to find out who he is, then he can go. But by nightfall, she’s invited him under her roof for her own protection since they're dealing with a town full of retired spies, including a suspicious sheriff, a sly-eyed moocher, a knife-wielding bakery owner, a stranger who looks like she drinks the blood of the damned, a conniving teenager, and a dog who's decided she's done with the Appalachian Trail.And Max is starting to think his dog is right.Rocky This could be the start of something dangerous.From the authors who brought you Agnes and the Hitman and the Liz Danger series, a new series in a similar vein.To be followed byVery Nice FuneralsThe Honey Pot Plot less

Rose Malone is doing all right except that her daughter is struggling with PTSD, her lover is leaving her for the Appalachian Trail, and there’s a rumor that there’s a million bucks in the building she inherited which has inspired every money-hungry man in her weird little town to bring her cheap flowers and offer to search the place for her.Max Reddy needs to get back to the Appalachian Trail; it’s hard to recover from a life of covert operations when you’re in a community of ex-agents... moreRose Malone is doing all right except that her daughter is struggling with PTSD, her lover is leaving her for the Appalachian Trail, and there’s a rumor that there’s a million bucks in the building she inherited which has inspired every money-hungry man in her weird little town to bring her cheap flowers and offer to search the place for her.Max Reddy needs to get back to the Appalachian Trail; it’s hard to recover from a life of covert operations when you’re in a community of ex-agents. But that community also has a woman and her daughter he cares about more than he thought possible. If he hadn’t made it his mission to finish walking the Trail, he might stay, but he always finishes what he starts.Then Max finds one of Rocky Start’s citizens dead in a coffin, and suddenly Max and Rose are after a killer in a town where a large percentage of the population is retired assassins. There’s the funeral director, the exterminator, the postmaster, the postmistress, the honey store owner, and the femme fatale, not to mention the handsome outsider journalist poking around for a story about serial killers.And now the killer is aiming at new Rose and Max.Very Nice Send flowers. Express your sympathy. Duck. less