Pretty in Ink by Karen E. Olson

First Line: If your name is Britney Brassieres, being taken down by a tsunami of champagne might seem only fitting.

Owner of The Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas, Brett Kavanaugh is an artist who specializes in one-of-a-kind works of art. After inking some of Las Vegas's newest drag queens, Brett and her employees attend opening night at The Strip's glamorous "Nylon and Tattoos" show. Unfortunately for drag queen Britney Brassieres, the last thing that glitters is a fatal champagne cork straight to the chest. The champagne shootist, who has a distinctive Queen of Hearts tattoo, disappears into the crowd.

Brett scarcely has time to blink before she's being grilled by Metro Homeland Security Detective Frank DeBurra. Believing that the police aren't taking her information about the man with the Queen of Hearts tattoo seriously enough, Brett begins sleuthing on her own... and everywhere she goes, Frank DeBurra is there. Is the man stalking her? When another drag queen is found poisoned, Brett has another question on an endless mind loop: just what does her new employee Charlotte have to do with all of this?

With its Las Vegas setting, this series can take you to unfamiliar places-- like the drag queen scene and tattoo shops-- and provide quite a bit of insight. If you're in the mood for a plot that is devious and moves at speed, Pretty in Ink is the book for you. The characters had such a stranglehold on me that I never really had the time to figure out what was going on. Brett, who has love right under her nose and refuses to see it, aggravated me no end by constantly hiding information from the police. If Frank DeBurra (who had to be the guy who put the nox into obnoxious) were stalking me, I'd tell him everything I knew including my great-great-grandmother's maiden name in an attempt to get the jerk off my back. Brett is made of sterner stuff. Pretty in Ink also serves up its share of humor-- not only with drag queen stage names-- but with the pièce de résistance: Brett's righthand woman, Bitsy, has the most perfect putdown of a politician I've read in ages. This little person had me laughing and clapping. Way to go, Bitsy!

Devious doings in Las Vegas, wonderful characters, humor... what are you waiting for?

Pretty in Ink by Karen E. Olson

ISBN: 9780451229625

Signet ©2010

Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

Genre: Cozy, Amateur Sleuth, #2 Tattoo Shop mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

The Missing Ink by Karen E. Olson

Title: The Missing Ink
Author: Karen E. Olson
ISBN: 9780451227461
Publisher: Signet, 2009
Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
Genre: Cozy, Amateur Sleuth, #1 Tattoo Shop mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

First Line: I've made grown men cry.

When Las Vegas homicide detective Tim Kavanaugh split with his girlfriend two years ago, his sister Brett moved in to share expenses. She also became the owner of The Painted Lady, a tattoo shop on the Las Vegas Strip.

A young woman makes an appointment for a tattoo that contains the name of her fiance within a heart, but she never shows up. The next thing Brett knows, the woman is missing, the police are looking for her, and the name she wanted on the tattoo isn't her fiance's.

Everyone on the suspect list seems to be beating a path to The Painted Lady's door (whether the shop is open or not), and Brett needs to find out what's going on while she still has a business to run.

This is a light, fun romp through the mean streets of Vegas with Brett as tour guide-- although she's not 100% sold on the city. (She has issues with the use of water, among other things.) Brett is level-headed, doesn't believe in taking foolish chances, and since her brother is a policeman, she knows how to find a dead body and not trash the crime scene.

There's also some tattoo lore and history to be learned along the way:

I wanted to stay, to talk to her more.... just to watch her, a previous generation of tattooist, a woman tattooist who'd had to suffer far more discrimination that I ever did. Those women who came before me were pioneers, breaking into a male-dominated profession and breaking all the rules.

I liked the pace of this book, Brett's employees, and Brett's voice. The identity of the killer seemed a bit obvious to me, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment of The Missing Ink. I'm looking forward to reading more of Brett's adventures.

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