Two Heads are Deader Than One by Elena Hartwell is the second book in the “Eddie Shoes” mystery series. Publisher: Camel Press, April 2017

Private Investigator Eddie Shoes is enjoying a rare period of calm. She’s less lonely now that Chava, her card-counting mom from Vegas, is sharing her home. She also has a new companion, Franklin, a giant dog of curious ancestry.

Hoping for a lucrative new case, Eddie instead finds herself taking on a less promising client: her best friend from her childhood in Spokane. Dakota has turned up in Bellingham in jail, where she is being held on a weapons charge. Eddie reluctantly agrees not only to lend her friend money for bail but to also investigate who is stalking her. Soon after Dakota is freed, she disappears again, leaving Eddie to answer to the local cops, including her ex-boyfriend Chance Parker. Has Dakota been kidnapped? If not, why did she jump bail? What are Eddie’s business cards doing on the bodies of two murder victims?

The key to these mysteries lies in Dakota and Eddie’s shared history, which ended when Eddie left home after high school. As a person of interest in both murder cases, Eddie is forced to go in search of the truth, digging into the past and facing her own demons.

This book grabbed me immediately quickly becoming a page-turner that was hard to put down. The author did a great job in setting up this story where a friend comes back and it’s up to Eddie to decipher whether what she is being told is the truth or not. The narrative kept me engaged in all that was happening in this fast-paced drama. The mystery was nicely done with scene after scene putting me a bit closer to what was going on with the one main player that had her hand in how this was going to end. There were some key elements that when it was said and done, made sense of the whys and I have to applaud the author on a job well done. Boasting a wonderful cast of characters that included Eddie and her delightfully charming mother, this was a great read and I can’t wait to read the next book in this terrific series.