Greetings
Books What in Heaven's Name is Lilly Belle up to now? After engaging critics and readers alike with Wildcat Wine, Bone Valley, and the award-winning Skinny-Dipping, Claire Matturro returns with the sharp, sexy and loveably neurotic vegetarian attorney Lilly Belle Rose Cleary. Lilly is yanked from her life in Florida when her brother Dan phones with the startling news that their reclusive, phobic mother—who hasn’t left her house in years—is not only lying comatose in the local hospital, but is accused of murder. Though Lilly vowed to never return to her hometown (for good reason!) after graduating from high school twenty years ago, she cannot refuse Dan’s plea, especially given such strange circumstances; it seems that Lilly’s mother shot a man in a dispute over a freezer full of voodoo eggs (yes, voodoo eggs). Lilly arrives in Georgia just in time to discover the body of her old high school crush, a county commissioner with some dubious dealings, smothered under a load of sweet feed. Then, a trio of meddling teens, including Lilly’s nephew, goes missing, along with an albino ferret harboring some serious Lassie fantasies. If all this isn’t enough to keep Lilly half crazy and too busy, she’s also got to juggle someone trying to kill her over-sedated mother along with the demands of her work, including a pesky lawsuit back in Sarasota that needs fixing pronto. But despite being armed with little more than her cell phone, her cunning, and her high tolerance for risk no matter how tumultuous the circumstances, Lilly always seems to crack the case with her shrewd sense of humor intact. Skinny-dipping
ACCOLADES FOR SKINNY-DIPPING “A bright, brassy, sexy, sassy heroine enters the lists of legal fiction with a joyful noise… Funny, sharp, savvy both as to the courtroom and the human condition. This new kid on Grisham’s block is one to watch.” – Kirkus Reviews Matturro has a wicked sense of comedic timing. I don’t know what they put in the water down there, but she’s got to be drinking from the same well as Carl Hiaasen....a great time." – Boston Globe “Matturro's publisher knows a good thing when it sees one: It signed her to a four-book deal just on the strength of her first. Good to know there's more Lilly Cleary adventures coming. Her sweet, sassy, sexy personality is enthralling.” – Rocky Mountain News “Matturro's writing is crisp, and the twisted medical scam plot original. Readers will chuckle aloud at Cleary's quirky aside snippets. Matturro, an appellate lawyer, writes of tort law with authority and is a fresh South Florida voice.” - The Miami Herald “Claire Matturro takes the legal thriller firmly in hand and invigorates it with an irreverent but always on-target mix of humor…Matturro's Skinny-Dipping and fellow Floridian James O. Born's Walking Money may prove to be among the best debuts of 2004.” – Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel “The plot is gripping. The style is witty, and Skinny-Dipping may be one of the best mysteries to debut in 2004.” – Montgomery Advertiser “One of the funniest mysteries I’ve read in ages.” – Les Roberts, The Plain Dealer “Lilly’s voice is irrepressible, but it’s not just the smart narration and good dialogue—Matturro, a former appellate attorney, has the legal stuff down pat.” – Publishers Weekly “Matturro keeps the humor coming generously and Cleary emerges as a likable, if misguided heroine.” - Detroit Free Press “A star is born with the launch of this new mystery series. Debut author Matturro is a real find. She combines humor, legal drama and genuine wackiness into a funny and intriguing story.” – Romantic Times “Matturro’s brassy heroine has elbowed her way into Hiaasen and Leonard’s turf in this smart, corkscrew water-slide of a debut. We Florida writers don’t need this kind of competition – and I’ll be standing in line for her next one.” – Tim Dorsey “Skinny-dipping is breezy and funny, with a heroine who’s a magnet for trouble. Dive in!” – Lisa Scottoline BONE VALLEY
Fruit slander. Veggie libel laws. A dead phosphate mine CEO, floating face down in a toxic gyp stack. Lilly in the lion's den. Mad-hatter brother Delvon to the rescue. A poetry-quoting handyman who nearly gets Lilly killed but saves her orphaned baby blue jay. A client blown up in front of her. Another client who might either be Lilly's next sweetheart, or her killer. All this and more: BONE VALLEY--in a bookstore near you October 24, 2006. WILDCAT WINE
There's a dead man in the swamp with a suitcase full of money, a 50-year-old man with pigtails at the door with a truck load of stolen wine, a butterfly obssessed attorney trying to destroy Lilly's secretary, and lawsuits to defend--what's a woman to do? LILLY'S FAVORITE WILDCAT WINE BOOK REVIEW Book Review: Wild Cat Wine Copyright 2006 By the Apalachee Tortoise All Rights Protected. Used here by permission. Link to www.apalacheetortoise.org By Donna Decker Lilly Belle Rosemary Cleary is a pistol in my book. And, it’s not only because she and my dog share the same first two names, complete with double Ls. No, Lilly Cleary shoots live ones because she’s a believable oxymoron. She’s a lawyer who argues appellate cases. However, she has her charkas adjusted before an oral arugment, she dines out only at vegan restaurants, and buys organic cedar chip dog beds – “which cost [her] not much less than tuition at [her] first community college” – for her Rottweiler, Bearess. She’s six feet tall and has raven hair, styled like Lauren Bacall. And she is the protagonist of Claire Matturo’s Wildcat Wine, which is the second book in her series of mystery novels set in Sarasota, Florida and surrounding areas. Lilly is a hoot, and every page contains at least one zinger – for instance, when she describes two women with perms as looking like “wet poodles on crystal meth.” The cast of characters with whom she regularly interacts are the blue-haired grandmother next door, who is the “hall monitor of the universe”; Farmer Dave, a former lover, now caretaker of her one hundred and eighty acre apple orchard in North Georgia; and her boss and mentor, Jackson Winchester Smith, who believes he is the living reincarnation of Stonewall Jackson and is largely featured in Lilly’s fantasy life. Matturro’s expertise as a former appellate attorney and member of the writing faculty of Florida State University ’s College of Law richly informs this book. Wildcat Wine’s prose is smooth and moves quickly, always with witty vibrancy. The dialogue is fresh and realistic. Lilly is a master of one-liners that hit their mark and show her to be a perceptive and compassionate protagonist, even though she is known for her ambition and often has her eye on billable hours. The rest of this novel’s characters are also quirky, extreme, and endearing. Most of them are good guys with sensitive souls who are trying to do their best while screwing up royally. How can you not have sympathy for a born-again guru by the new name of Gandhi Singh who wears a yellow Nehru jacket over his khakis and tries to be of service by counseling alien abductees and psychically locating lost cats? These characters are vulnerable, loony, and most definitely likeable. The plot revolves around three murders, a truckload of stolen muscadine wine grown in a local vineyard, and tracking the elusive jaguarundis – the wild South American cat that defied domestication in the and, as legend has it, fled to the swamps of Myakka State Park . However, subplots abound, as do rich themes. Matturro seamlessly balances an impressive array of subject matter. Wildcat Wine draws the reader into the areas of single-motherhood, obsessive-compulsive disorders and germ phobias, Mexican immigrants who are recruited by businesses, product liability, improvements on grape harvesters, organic wine-making, and how to respond to a diamondback rattler, among others. Additionally, she takes gentle potshots on the day-to-day minutiae on the lives of appellate lawyers and faculty who get hired to teach at law schools. It’s a joy to read a book that is this funny and steeped in authenticity. It is also refreshing to read a mystery novel set in the artistic and culturally hip city of Sarasota . Wildcat Wine’s Gulf coast Sarasota is a city that Lilly loves and for which she mourns. In a poignant passage, she laments the passing of Florida habitats like orange groves due to development. Bone Valley , Matturro’s third book in the series that is forthcoming in September, explores environmental issues even more keenly. In Bone Valley , Lilly takes on the phosphate mining industry for its destructive impacts on Central Florida waters, particularly the Peace River . We see this issue foreshadowed in Wildcat Wine when we hear Lilly say, "[I] looked about me at the gray gouged-out pathos of these holes, these ruined scrublands, desolate even before the miners were done, pockmarked with holes and studded with earthen dams full of radioactive phosphate-gypsum slime, slime that leached its poisons into the meager remaining groundwaters. Yeah, definitely, God gave up on Florida and left." It’s clear that Lilly Cleary has not given up on Florida and neither has Claire Matturro. However, they are calling us to wake up and protect our Sunshine State . What better way to do it than through smart, sharp, witty writing like that of Wildcat Wine? Now, if you know where to find a case of that organic muscadine, give me a holler. |
  |
||
|
