He Had It Coming - Charles Puccia

Frances Langone finds her husband, Dom, dead on the kitchen floor with a bullet in his skull. Her first response isn’t grief but a search for the mop. Given Dom’s infamous reputation, the suspect list stretches the length of the funeral luncheon line.

But before she can enjoy her freedom and a hefty inheritance, a clever coworker of Dom’s appears with a warning: surrender the corporate secrets Dom stole, or he’ll see to it she’s framed for Dom’s murder. Unfortunately, Frances knew nothing about Dom’s business dealings-only, perhaps, about his administrative assistant, the deliciously named Max Yumm.

Detective MacBrite, a battle-hardened curmudgeon, and his rookie partner, Andy Hardy, who mines tips from a roster of ex-girlfriends, muddle through dishonest witnesses and dwindling leads with Frances squarely in their sights.

Giving the detectives little chance of solving the case, Frances enlists her friends Ruth and Misty, the Mavens of Foxhaven Country Club, to investigate on their own. Money laundering, drug trafficking, and a Cayman Islands bank account suggest Dom had enemies well beyond his inner circle-and someone with a far stronger motive for murder than Frances.

The Mavens are inept, quirky, and irritating, making them unlikely to solve anything except by dumb luck. If they fail, Frances faces life behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit. Yet doubt about her innocence lingers among her friends and the rest of Foxhaven, who assume she did it and that he had it coming.

A darkly comic mystery for anyone who’s ever rooted for the underdog.