Margarita Nights is a cozy with grit -- serving Jack Daniels instead of tea.

In a small Florida beach town, Sherri Travis is a bartender with attitude and an inconveniently murdered husband who turns out to be as much trouble to her dead as he was alive.

Sifting through the debris of Jimmy's life, Sherri finds more than a few people who wanted her lying, scheming, scam artist husband gone -- but which one actually did the deed?




Reviews

Winnipeg Free Press

Dialogue, pacing make terrific tale
Winnipeg Free Press
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Page D0
Section Books
Byline: Lindor Reynolds

Let's be clear about one thing: Phyllis Smallman's Margarita Nights
(McArthur & Company, 329 pages, $25.00) isn't good for a Canadian
novel. It's good, period.

Smallman, who devides her time among Salt Spring Island, Hamilton,
and southwest Florida, had the smarts to set her story in the mythical
town of Jacaranda, Florida. Bartender Sherri Travis,a blowsy woman
with no sense of decorum, is stunned when her ex-husband's boat
blows up, allegedly with Jimmy Travis on board.

She's convinced he faked his death. The cops are convinced she
killed him. Unless she can prove he's alive, she's in big trouble.

This is a terrific book, with snappy dialogue, rapid pacing and
characters you'd hope to meet in a beach bar. Back when Stephanie
Plum was still writing fresh, original material she was this good

Additional Reviews

Ancaster News and Dundas Star Review

London Free Press Review

Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury Review

Margarita Nights was the first ever recipient of the Arthur Ellis Award for Unhanged Arthur from the Crime Writers of Canada in June 2007.

Margarita Nights was also short listed by the Crime Writers of the UK for the Debut Dagger in 2004.