A Review of the Bubbles Yablonsky Mystery Series by Sarah Strohmeyer

A Bubbles Yablonsky mystery is more fun than a Van Halen concert at the Allentown Fair! Maybe it's because I grew up on the outskirts of the Lehigh Valley (Bubbles lives in Lehigh, Pennsylvania, a thinly disguised Bethlehem), but I find these books far funnier than Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, to which they're often compared.

The two series do share some elements - a strong woman in a profession atypical for her, a well-described blue-collar town, a professional rival, a loony older woman (for Bubbles, it's her mother's friend Genevieve, a conspiracy theorist who knows more about guns than an arsenal manager), and a sexy colleague/boyfriend. Stephanie Plum is far more well known, but Bubbles Yablonsky has something about her that leaves more than just hormone-driven men wanting more.

Sarah Strohmeyer first introduced her spandex-clad beautician heroine to readers in Bubbles Unbound (2001). A thirtysomething mother of a teenager, Bubbles enrolled in Two Guys Community College after a divorce judge ordered her upwardly mobile, ambulance-chasing ex-husband to pay for her education. No career seemed suitable for her until her journalism professor recognized her sense for gossip as a good quality in a reporter and helped her get a job at his newspaper.

An unlikely reporter, Bubbles nonetheless works hard and gets scoop after scoop, much to the dismay of the paper's editor and crime reporter. Sexy and experienced photojournalist Steve Stiletto becomes a fixture in her life, always showing up when she most needs him, and the two solve mysteries across eastern Pennsylvania - in an abandoned mine, a powerful steel corporation, and even Amish Country (where Bubbles, whose wardrobe is anything but modest, goes undercover as an Amish woman).

Beneath the haze of Final Net hairspray, Bubbles is a smart woman whose investigations invariably lead her to dangerous situations and introduce her to memorable characters. Strohmeyer does not sacrifice the elements of a good mystery - multiple suspects, unexpected plot twists, and satisfying endings - to bring laughs, yet she manages to deliver some of the best humor writing on the shelves today.

Bubbles All the Way, the latest book in the series (Onyx paperback, 2006), opens as a woman drops dead of an apparent allergic reaction in the House of Beauty, owned by Bubble's comparatively boring best friend, Sandy. About to remarry her ex-husband in order to maintain custody of her daughter, Bubbles postpones getting her marriage license to save her friend's reputation. The book includes a surprise ending, which will send the series in an entirely new direction. The ending disappointed me, simply because it signals radical changes to the series elements I like the most. I will look forward to the next book, but a little less eagerly.