Oklahoma! Hex
The latest revival of Oklahoma! is in a “turrible” fix when “pore” Jud is dead onstage in the middle of the first act
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—loves, loves, loves the musical theatre and feels much the same about her profession—intuitive investigating—so when the lead producer of Oklahoma! calls to request her help, Mex is hot on the case.
Her impeccable in at the theatre is the production stage manager, Veronica D’Alcantara, and even Mex, she who completely lacks gaydar, feels Veronica’s attentive eyes on her person. She teams up with her favorite NYPD sergeant, Michael Ryan Kelley, and pulls back the curtain to discover unlikely connections amongst the cast and crew.
Her pursuit of the truth takes her deep into the Bronx and on a flight to the southernmost tip of the Americas as she confronts a web of evil that crosses the globe.
Will the trip reveal a bright golden haze on the meadow, will the farmers and the cowmen learn to be friends, or will it be all ’er nothin’ for this high femme, intuitive investigator?
Brigadoon Moon
No one is going home to Bonnie Jean until the triple murder near the standing stones is solved
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—flees the renovation of her new Queen Anne Victorian and her rocky romantic relationship to the Western Isles of Scotland. A dear friend is the maestro for a new revival of Brigadoon way north of everywhere.
Mex becomes embroiled in a centuries-old battle between local witches and Druids centered in the standing stones of the Callanish Circle. A sudden loss and an equally dramatic insight bring Mex’s personal dilemma into high relief.
A tangle with a local aristocrat sets the stage for Mex to play the role of a lifetime—the intuitive investigator who solves a gruesome triple murder. Before the curtain can rise, Mex is filling in for an absentee director and working overtime to unravel the clues she’s given in the Ogham, an ancient Druidic alphabet.
Will Mex solve this case in time for Brigadoon to evanesce into the mists for another century, or will she be caught out of time in the heather on the hill?
Butterfly Fan
One fine day has come for the geisha and mobsters hiding the murder of high-level CFO
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—follows her heart to Kyoto, where the okasan of the oldest geisha house in existence has commissioned a one-shot performance of Puccini’s beloved Madama Butterfly.
On her way to rehearsal one day, a decades-old, deeply painful secret confronts Mex. When it’s time, healing waits for no one. She wakens on a rainy morning to a sea of blood, and a summons from her host to solve the high-profile murder of his right-hand man.
As the vigil of her heartbreak turns to healing through Reiki initiation, Mex is understandably wary when the Yakuza—Japanese mobsters—weigh in on the case.
Will Mex face down the mob and drag the truth out of the geisha family that has kept its secrets for so long, or will she have a close call with her own genuine artifice?
Chicago Valentine
House out. Conductor, go. Voiceover, go. Lights up. Murder spree?
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—shines best when she’s close to the Great Bright Way. Six unrelated victims have been found dead all over the City. Two consistent but curious clues tie them together—a ticket stub to Chicago—The Musical and a mysterious playing card.
Sergeant Michael Ryan Kelley’s crew know nothing about how theatre works on the inside, so he casts Mex into the case. As the lights flicker on Broadway and the gossip infiltrates the industry, Mex must dive deep into her Romany ancestry, and learn quite a few new dance steps to keep ahead of a card sharp.
Mex’s heart and a killer are on the loose when the love of her life reappears to propose marriage and all that jazz. Mex turns to her Granny’s divination training for inspiration along with a little assistance from Prudence, her longest-time cat-panion.
Will Mex razzle dazzle Broadway and make the intuitive leap to solve the case or has the murderer set the stage for a grizzly encore performance?
Mattress Police
What do a minstrel, a mattress, and a murder have in common?
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is on hiatus at her whimsical pink Queen Anne Victorian home in the Hudson River Valley. When the leading man in a nearby summer theatre conservatory’s Once Upon A Mattress is murdered, she gets a callback to investigate his death and play what she rapidly learns is not her usual role.
She’s up to her royal eyeballs in spirit gum and facial hair and a murder investigation at the same time. The King is dead, Winnifred is missing, and local law enforcement is drowning in the swamps of home.
The apple orchards hold a deep, dark secret lineage, and Mex keeps having visions of the four lost treasures of The Holy Grail.
Will Mex swim the moat or will she drown in the swamp of lies begun many moons ago?
Gypsy Chicks
Everything is not coming up roses when Mex is drafted into a revealing undercover gig. . .
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is back in the Big Apple where an exotic dancer is dead in a dumpster. The NYPD needs someone to go undercover in the exclusive Eastside men’s club where she was found, and Mex is their first and only choice.
With the help of her ecdysiastical mentor, Mex shimmies into her undercover assignment as a high-class burlesque dancer. The perspicacious Gypsy Rose Lee inspires Mex to find her own gimmick. And, of course, Mex saves some of the costumes for personal use later.
The shade of her long-absent father appears onstage, and Mex falls hard into her own ancestral healing. Mex discovers just what part of her heart still belongs to Daddy.
Will she strip the case to reveal the bare-naked facts or will her past so swamp her that she cannot find the Truth at all?
Something Wicked
Everything in Boston is wicked good … until the good witch goes missing.
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is suddenly the most popular girl in the country. Galinda, from a Boston company of Wicked, has vanished, leaving behind her precious dog, too. Something bad is happening in Oz.
Ordinarily Mex surrenders cases like these to the kidnapping and rescue experts, but religious picketers are stalking the theatre night after night, and the producers want to keep the scandal quiet.
Mex and one of the flying monkeys set loose a ritual from an ancient Hawaiian reconciliation technique, but time is running out.
Will the intuitive investigator defy gravity and find the missing actress, or will the wizard bamboozle Mex and the green girl at the same time?
Legallly Bond
There’s blood in the water in Boston, and the hallowed halls of Harvard Law may never be the same.
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is no fan of the Feebs, but when a sting operation to expose the sugar baby black market is on the books, only Mex will do. A national tour of Legally Blonde has hit the stage of the Colonial Theatre on Boston Common. At the same time, a few of Harvard’s best and brightest are involved in a scheme that might not survive even the briefest legal scrutiny.
While her own relationship heads steadily away from anything resembling a legal bond, her case heats up, guided by seemingly random lucky dipping into a book of ancient Chinese wisdom. In a series of dubiously proper assignations, Mex is cleverly disguised as a philanthropic sugar mama on the track of the shadowy higher-ups in the world of mutually beneficial relationships.
Can Mex and the Feebs preserve higher education in Boston or will malum in se—evil in itself—rule the day?
Rent Rx
La vie boheme is under threat when Mex shows up to say, I’ll cover you.
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is 525,600 tears into deep grieving when Sergeant Michael Ryan Kelley calls in an attempt to re-light her candle. He needs her intuitive expertise on an international drug case spanning New York City up the Hudson River to Albany and beyond.
A cast member of a performing arts high school tour of Rent is dead. Mex is about to say good-bye love to her grief when a passel of unidentified agents rings the doorbell of her midtown office; it’s become a federal case.
When the opioid crisis moves way too close to home, Kelley has to pull strings to arrange a place for a dear one in a very special, gay rehab run by the eternally fabulous Sisters of Never-Ending Reciprocity. A new approach based on the labyrinth pulls the whole team into their own rehabilitation.
Will the seasons of love win out, or will they all lose their dignity forever?
Christmas Presence
Jacob Marley isn’t the only one rattling his chains this holiday season.
Mexicali Rose—Mex to her friends—is directing this year’s cash cow production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to raise money for a major cathedral renovation in upper Manhattan. But Scrooge can’t remember his lines, the sky is increasingly visible through the church ceiling, and Mex is chained to a miserly budget of $100 for the whole shebang.
While Mex is deep in placing, costuming, lighting, and taming Phantoms, Fezziwigs, and Cratchits galore, there’s a ghostly wisp of financial impropriety. Mex’s trusty assistant, Gareth B. Hawkins, takes lead on the case to stop the threat to thwart the holiday generosity they’re all counting on to bless them, every one.
Will Mex close this case and find a miracle or two way north of 34th Street, or will the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come leave them all in a holiday humbug?
