Book ~ "Homemade Sin" (1994) Mary Kay Andrews (Kathy Hogan Trocheck)

From Goodreads ~ Callahan Garrity is the owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after Atlanta's elite. She's also a former cop and a part-time sleuth. She and her coterie of devoted helpers can ransack a house for clues faster than it takes a fingerprint to set.

Some people might call Callahan Garrity nosy but she prefers to think of her tendency toward snooping as a healthy interest in the truth. So when news reaches her of her cousin Patti's death during a carjacking, Callahan shakes off her House Mouse cleaning uniform to don her detective's cap. It's not that she doesn't have confidence in the Atlanta police - she used to be among their ranks - but the crime is too incongruous with Patti's suburban life to seem like a random incident.

Callahan used to be a police officer and changed careers when she bought House Mouse, a cleaning service that she runs with her mother, Edna ... but she still does private investigating on the side.

Callahan is shocked and sad when her close cousin, Patti, is murdered in a carjacking.  Patti's young son was in the backseat when it happened and is a witness but has a mental handicap so isn't able to fully tell what happened.  The police are looking into it and suspect that it's gang related. But Callahan is wondering what her cousin was doing on that side of town where it happened because she rarely left her neighbourhood.  Callahan starts her own investigation by questioning and then alienating her family members.  There is a $1.5 million insurance policy on Patti so Callahan gets some help from the insurance company agent investigating it and friends who are still police officers but who aren't on the case.

The writing style and storyline were okay.  It is written in first person perspective in Callahan's voice.  Because it was originally written in the early 1990s, they are still using pay phones, CDs, etc. and there are references by Callahan of growing up in the 1970s.  As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.

This is the third in the Callahan Garrity Mystery Series ... I read the first one in 2018 and recently picked the series back up again and read the second one last week.  Though part of a series, it works as a stand alone as there is enough background provided.