With that title, I really should save Darynda Jones’ A Hard Day for a Hangover for the day after New Year’s. I have a number of reviews coming up, though, and I’m working on a couple right now. So, it’s a good time to fill in with one of Kevin Tipple’s reviews. Thank you, Kevin.

A Hard Day for a Hangover by Darynda Jones is the third book in the series that began with A bad Day For Sunshine. Things remain very unsettled as Sunshine Vicram has told Levi Ravinder that he is a father and the man up and disappeared. The fact that he took her deputy’s patrol car, said Deputy is Quincy Copper who also happens to be her best friend, is another issue that could cost the new sheriff of Del Sol New Mexico her job. If that is not enough, Sunshine and Quincy are looking at some sort of assault as the book starts.

Doug Pettyfer apparently flashed the wrong person as he has a knitting needle firmly implanted in his neck while he sits in the local medical center. He claims a gang attacked him, but considering Del Sol is a small tourist town in the middle of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, gangs aren’t an issue. Doug keeps talking and with every statement it is clear he is lying about what he was doing, where he was at, and how he got impaled.

Sheriff Sunshine Vicram and her team do not have time for Doug’s nonsense. They have two missing people to find.

One is Levi and it has been two days since he stole (or borrowed in Sunshine’s mind) the cruiser. After all, the car was quickly recovered, so it was just temporally borrowed.

Clay Ravinder needs to be found and put into protective custody before Levi finds him and settles some things. The reason Levi is looking for him is complicated and ties into the previous books of the series and therefore is a spoiler.

All that and a couple of other things are already going on when Deputy Salazer informs her that they may have a body out at Copper Canyon. Drew Essary was out hunting and spotted it through binoculars. The body is on an incline deep in the canyon. He was going to try and reach it, but doing so will cut him off from cell service. Salazer is headed out to cordon off the area and Vicram and Cooper will respond with their rappelling gear.

It isn’t long before they receive word that dead body is not dead. The person is a badly injured female in her late teens or early twenties. Rescuing her and then finding out what happened to her drives the novel forward alongside several complicated secondary story lines that have been playing out this entire series.

A book and a series that is very good and well worth your time. Because A Hard Day For A Hangover by Darynda Jones resolves several things that have been going on in various secondary storylines, it is best to read in order, starting with the first book. You will be glad you did.

My reading copy came courtesy of an ARC through NetGalley.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2022