Bakersfield Irregulars

An eccentric and choleric oil industry inventor is found bludgeoned to death by his timid wife in the living room of their rented bungalow. Homicide detectives Ramos and Cantrell find a wealth of suspects, including his employer, his brother in law, his own children, a neighbor and even the victim's wife herself, who proves not so timid after all.

Detective Cantrell is attracted to the victim's landlady but finds the woman, Oleta Parker, tends to interfere in the case. It's not only her he has to contend with, but also a small contingent of her allies including her best friend Birdie McGrath, a woman with a violent shade of Plum hair named Vicky Furlong, Oleta's ex-husband Wade (much to Cantrell's chagrin) and Wade's nephew called "Cousin Billy".

When it is discovered that blueprints of an important new oil derrick stuffing box are missing from the victim's improvised workshop, focus turns to the invention as a motive for the murder. Oleta stays one step ahead of the detectives, tracks down the plans and triumphantly pounces on the wrong suspect but is the catalyst for at last unraveling the mystery.

This is the first of a series of four separate mysteries that follow Oleta through her romance with Cantrell, her growing sophistication from a farm raised high school dropout to her achievement of a private investigator's license and growing appreciation of correct grammar. Only the knowledge of when to use "who" or "Whom" seems to defeat her.

The books in proper order of progression are "Bakersfield Irregulars", "Snake in Paradise", "Double Barrel" and "Weddings, Wine, and Murder".