Curing the Blues with a New Pair of Shoes » (Original)

Dixie Cash is Pamela Cumbie and her sister Jeffery McClanahan. They grew up in West Texas during the great oil boom, an era filled with "real-life fictional" characters who cry to be written about. Pam has always had a zany sense of humor and Jeffery has always had a dry wit. Surrounded by cowboys and steeped in country-western music, when they can stop laughing long enough they work together creating hilarity on paper. Both live in Texas—Pam in the Fort Worth–Dallas Metroplex and Jeffery in a small town near Fort Worth.

Elvis has left the building . . . and his shoes have followed suit!

No holiday in tiny Salt Lick, Texas, is more revered than January 8th—Elvis's birthday! To commemorate the grand occasion, Hogg's Drive-In—where the King enjoyed many a burger on the road to fame and fortune—is displaying an “actual” pair of Elvis's blue suede shoes. That is, until some heel without a soul swipes them right out of their display case.

Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin—the shoe-loving Domestic Equalizers—are shocked that someone would perpetrate such a dastardly crime. So the plucky detecting duo agrees to help the town's inept sheriff track down the royal blue loafers. And being majestic multitaskers, the ladies might even be able to squeeze in some matchmaking as well.

Mix-ups, mayhem, the threat of gunplay, and shocking octogenarian secrets revealed—it's all in a day's work for the Domestic Equalizers, the two best friends whose motto is: Don't get mad . . . get evidence!

Publishers Weekly

When Elvis Presley's celebrated blue suede shoes, the prize exhibit at an Elvis festival in Salt Lick, Tex., go missing in Cash's cute fifth cowgirl crime novel (after Don't Make Me Choose Between Me and My Shoes), the Domestic Equalizers (and Styling Station beauty operators), Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin, investigate. Soon after Debbie and Edwina decide to substitute an old pair of slippers belonging to Ed's husband for the real item, they discover that the person who sent them the blue suede shoes, "Adolf Sielvami, Keeper for the King Museum" in Las Vegas, appears not to exist. In a sweet subplot, unrepentant matchmakers Debbie Sue and Edwina promote the fumbling romance between Fort Worth Star-Telegram journalist Avery Deaton and Dallas Morning News rookie sports reporter Sam Carter. As Salt Lick fills with Elvis lovers, the pseudonymous Cash (a Texas writing-sisters duo) taps winningly into the Elvis myth. (Aug.)

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