Diane Kelly, Guest Blogger

Today is March 15th. That means it's one month until taxes are due. What better day to invite Diane Kelly to do a guest post? Diane Kelly is the author of the Death and Taxes humorous mystery series. And, she has a few warnings for people who try to mess with the IRS. Thank you, Diane!

Hi, y’all!  Thanks to Lesa for inviting me here today.  I’m IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway, star of Diane Kelly’s hilarious Death and Taxes romantic mystery series.  Don’t let the fact that I work for the IRS scare you off.  I’m actually a nice person – except to those who try to cheat Uncle Sam and honest taxapayers like you and me.  Those folks better not mess with me.  I’m not known as the “Annie Oakley of the IRS” for nothing!  Yep, I’m a damn good shot.  I just wish I didn’t have so many opportunities to prove it.  You wouldn’t believe the paperwork that’s involved!

I’ve got two cats, Annie and Henry.  Annie’s a sweet little nervous thing, but Henry’s a big ol’ pompous puss.  They live with me in a two-story townhouse in the Uptown section of Dallas.  The place provides us a nice home and some tax deductions, though I could use a little more closet space.  Who couldn’t, right?  I love living in the big city now, dressing up and eating at fancy restaurants, though the tomboy who grew up shooting BB guns in the piney woods of east Texas still lives inside me and rears her head on occasion.    

In book #1, DEATH, TAXES, AND A FRENCH MANICURE, I team up with a female DEA agent to pursue a drug-dealing, tax-cheating ice cream truck driver.  Christina and I have a ball, dressing trashy and hanging out at a former crack house in an undercover sting.  I also go after a con artist running a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme.  How low does a man have to sink to rip off little old ladies?  What a chump!  And all the gunplay?  It’s hell on my manicure.  Good thing I’ve got my new boyfriend, Brett, to keep me distracted.  He’s a landscape architect with some awfully nice equipment and he definitely knows how to keep a girl’s bushes trimmed.  Wink-wink.

Things never seem to slow down!  Now, in DEATH, TAXES, AND A SKINNY NO-WHIP LATTE, my job has become even more dangerous.  My partner, Eddie, and I are after a sophisticated financier named Marcos Mendoza who has shady international connections.  A number of Mendoza’s business associates have turned up dead.  Coincidence?  I hardly think so.  But, heck, the FBI and Texas Rangers couldn’t get anything on the guy.  How am I supposed to find enough evidence to bring Mendoza in?  But I can’t just let the guy go on or the next murder will be on my head.  The guilt would be too much to bear!  To make matters worse, all of the creamy caramel lattes I’ve been drinking while keeping an eye on things have gone straight to my butt.  I’ll have to switch to skinny lattes from now on.  Is there any reason to go on?

I hope that you’ll come with my on my crime-fighting escapades.  Wishing you big tax refunds and a “latte” laughs!

*****
Thank you, Diane & Tara! And, we're all hoping for those big tax refunds! Good luck to both of you.

Diane Kelly's website is http://www.dianekelly.com/.

Death, Taxes, and a Skinny No-Whip Latte by Diane Kelly. St. Martin's Press. 2012. ISBN 9780312551278 (paperback), 336p.