Flat Busted: A Murder Mystery (Fiber) Filled with Embarrassing Family Antics and Silly References to Underwear

Rating:
Summary: Crime sprees and psychedelic bees
Review: Early in Marcia Mayo's first comic mystery, "Cold Cuts", Annabelle Lee McGee of River
End, Georgiacomplains when her next door neighbor and best friend, Johnny Belinda Jones (J.B. for short), knocks on her door before 8 a.m.
Here is their conversation, in Mayo's inimitable style:
"I was worried you might be dead."
"And what were you going to do if I was?" Annabelle asked.
"Clean up your house before the church ladies got here," answered J.B., looking around.
That's classic Marcia Mayo.
So is the scene in her new book, "Flat Busted," in which Annabelle's kinfolks are playing Hank Williams' recording of "Kawliga" at Cousin Jimmie Don Lester's funeral (because it was his favorite.)
And then there's the short masterpiece of a chapter in which J.B. (who is black) is trying to give Annabelle (who is white) a body perm and they are both reeling from the combination of the chemical fumes and a bottle of $3.99 wine Annabelle has opened "to create the ambience of a real spa experience."
The two women, who take a trip to Phipps Plaza together once Annabelle's hair is repaired by a professional, are an unlikely pair, brought together by the fact that neither one quite fits in to the small southern town they're living in.
As Mayo puts it, "Aside from the fact that Annabelle Lee McGee and Johnnie Belinda Jones had been both named for tragic literary figures, they were polar opposites. Annabelle was an artsy white woman, a leftover hippie, planted and stuck in the sticks. J.B., a web-page designer, was sassy and black, a transplanted Yankee, also stuck in the sticks."
Also in the cast: Annabelle's ex-husband, who just happens to be the chief of police; J.B.'s current husband, the Republican college professor and gourmet cook, George Jones; and Annabelle's three wandering adult children " all on their own without benefit of either observable drive or health insurance,"
Yes, these books are mysteries with good story lines. "Cold Cuts" deals with the murder of a thoroughly detestable former high school prom queen, and "Flat Busted" unravels the mystery behind a major theft of padded bras from a local underwear factory.
But Mayo's humor would be reason enough to read them even with no plot at all.
When it comes to taking a poke or two at the south's sacred cows, Mayo takes no prisoners. It's as if Molly Ivins decided to give up on politics and concentrate on small town southern life instead, and what makes it all work is that the main character is, herself, the funniest character in the books.
A fifty-ish redhead who has given up teaching to concentrate on making art that nobody wants to buy, Annabelle just doesn't care about fashion, household décor, or cooking.
She gets it together on Christmas day, however. Her children are there, and her ex-husband (their daddy, of course) has also come to partake of the feast.
"The turkey casserole had turned out perfectly with nicely coagulated mushroom soup and browned potato chips, only a few burned ones on the edges. The cranberry sauce was still holding its' can-like shape, including the circular indentations, and Mrs. Edwards had outdone herself."
As an artist, she's just completed some papier-mâché angels that look like "psychedelic bees" to her children . Her latest inspiration is to buy the 1967 white VW microbus her son (the one with dreadlocks under the Braves cap) just drove from Oregon and paint it as a traveling advertisement for her home-based art business.
Paint it? Well, of course.
"The works she was considering included "Whistler's Mother," Michelangelo's 'Creation," Grant Wood's "American Gothic," and one of Georgia O'Keefe's pornographic flowers."
Annabelle has a cousin named Lester Lester, who named his son Junior Lester, who named his son Junior, Jr.
And she has a dog and a cat who talk to each other when she's not around to hear them. The dog, a lab named Charlie, is smitten with the poodle down the street, which leads him to singing Patsy Cline songs from time to time.
"Crazy ... crazy for feeling so lonely!"
All of which brings us to the big question.
Who is Marcia Mayo and why is she writing these crazy books?
Interviewed at The Swanson last week, Mayo, who was en route from her home in Warner Robins to her job as a professor of early childhood education at Georgia Southwestern University, explained that she started out by writing personal essays.
Then a friend said, "You're a really good writer. Why don't you write something people want to read?" and she decided to put her imagination and humor to work in a murder mystery.
A native of Savannah, Mayo has been a first grade teacher, an elementary school principal and a curriculum coordinator -- all in Houston County public schools - and is currently teaching teachers. She says that she has "a five year attention span" when it comes to jobs, and hopes at some point to return to classroom teaching.
In the meantime, she's earned a PhD., written an "excruciatingly boring dissertation" and published two very funny books, which she says were partly inspired by her real-life best friend Debra Pope Johnson, who is the model for J.B. in the book, but is decidely NOT a Republican.
Her three children, Melissa, Billy and Molly Talbert, serve as her critical readers, and her friends and fans have bought enough copies of her first book for her to buy a new window fan for her bedroom, thus - as the book jacket blurb for "Flat Busted" puts it - "greatly improving the quality of life for her pets, who sit directly in front of the fan and hog the breeze."
From The Houston Home Journal, Perry, GA

Rating:
Summary: Encore Dr. Mayo
Review: I loved this book even more than her first book, "Cold Cuts." I was laughing out loud through the whole book. I loved it. I hope she writes another one--I can't wait to read more about Annabelle and J.B.'s adventures.

Rating:
Summary: Encore Dr. Mayo
Review: I loved this book even more than her first book, "Cold Cuts." I was laughing out loud through the whole book. I loved it. I hope she writes another one--I can't wait to read more about Annabelle and J.B.'s adventures.