A Bad Day for Sorry - (Stella Hardesty Crime Novels) by Sophie Littlefield (Paperback)

About the Book

Stella Hardesty runs a side business helping battered women. When Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help, it seems like a straightforward case. When Chrissy's husband disappears with her two-year-old son, Stella risks her own life to recover the boy.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Anthony Award for Best First Novel!

Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she's so busy delivering home-style justice, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she's barely got time to run her sewing shop. Since Stella works outside of the law, she's free to do whatever it takes to be convincing--as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good, husband Roy Dean, it looks like just another standard job. But then Chrissy's two-year-old son is taken, and Stella finds herself up against a much more formidable enemy.

Sophie Littlefield's A Bad Day for Sorry won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel and an RT Book Award for Best First Mystery. It was also shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, Crimespree, and Macavity Awards, and it was named to lists of the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Review Quotes

"Crime fiction hasn't seen a character as scrappy, mean, and incredibly appealing as Stella in a long time." --Entertainment Weekly

"An abundance of violence is leavened with humor and heart in this debut novel in what I hope is the start of a new series." --Hallie Ephron, Boston Globe

"Markedly original...The story's compelling, the dialogue perfect--and Stella is one of the most memorable characters of this summer or any other." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

"A Bad Day for Sorry is another of the year's best debuts, a standout mystery distinguished by its charming protagonist and her compelling voice. We don't get many characters like Stella in mystery fiction, but we should. She's fresh and sassy and an awful lot of fun to read about." --David J. Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

"In her debut novel, Sophie Littlefield shows considerable skills for delving into the depths of her characters and complex plotting as she disarms the reader.....Littlefield keeps the plot churning with realistic action that doesn't let up....Littlefield's exciting debut should be the start of an even more exciting series." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel

About the Author

Sophie Littlefield grew up in rural Missouri. Her first novel, A Bad Day for Sorry, won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel and an RT Book Award for Best First Mystery. It was also shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, Crimespree, and Macavity Awards. The second in the series, A Bad Day for Pretty, was named a New York Times Notable Book. Sophie lives near San Francisco, California.