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"A brassy, sassy, neurotic Sarasota attorney [Lilly Cleary] returns to her backwater hometown to solve a murder and save her mother's life. ...Before she and her African-American best friend Shalonda can sort out everything that's rotten in Bugfest, they'll be involved with fire ants, smuggling, bribery and kidnapping. But Cleary never loses her gift for wry self-mockery, as when she confides that 'what had me worried was how quick I was getting down to my last box of Save the Forest Organic Trail Mix Bars.' Breezy and fun." Kirkus Review
Winner of the Toby Bromberg Award for Most Humorous Mystery
"Reader who prefer their heroines with an extra dose of sass will find a lot to like." Publishers Weekly
Matturro is "crafty and talented," and "Wonderful weirdness abounds." Romantic Times Mystery Reviews (four and a half stars)
"Florida 's phosphate-rich "bone valley" region provides the scary background, while Lilly's fearless exuberance under pressure adds comic relief to an intricate tale that underscores the catastrophic effects abandoned phosphate mines and deadly gyp stacks can have on people and the environment." Publishers Weekly
"...like Hiaasen, [Matturro] keeps you with her all the way, laughing or gulping." Washington Post
"Matturro has a fresh voice and lively style (think Janet Evanovich meets John Grisham), and as a former appellate attorney and member of the writing faculty at Florida State University College of Law, she's certainly qualified to write about the law." Library Journal
"Matturro's offbeat humor and satirical take on the law and human nature make for sharp and comical reading." Romantic Times Mystery Reviews:
"Funny and tough, and full of wacky characters who are utterly real, this is a mystery, a legal thriller, and a serious novel rolled into one. Lilly Cleary is not just another lawyer/detective. She's as smart as she is sexy, and she's got a cockeyed but endearing array of clients and sidekicks that spring to life from the fertile Florida soil. I was hooked in five pages."
“Lilly Belle Cleary is a whip-smart trial lawyer with the heart of a buccaneer and the soul of a lady bountiful. Who else could save wounded birds and take on greedhead polluters running on one granola bar and a couple of glasses of organic wine? BONE VALLEY is bona fide fun.”
-Virginia Swift, author of BYE, BYE LOVE and HELLO STRANGER
Nominated for a Georgia Writer of the Year Award.
"As she did in her debut novel Skinny-dipping, Matturro devises a unique and complex plot with a lot of high-energy juice. She is a welcome addition to the growing list of notable crime writing novelists inspired by the beauty and insanity of Florida. --Miami Herald
"A bright, brassy, sexy, sassy heroine enters the lists of legal fiction with a joyful noise...
Funny, sharp, savvy both as to the courtroom and the human condition. This new kid on Grisham's block is one to watch." Kirkus Reviews
"Matturro has a wicked sense of comedic timing. I don't know what they put in the water down there, but she's got to be drinking from the same well as Carl Hiaasen....a great time." Boston Globe
"Claire Matturro takes the legal thriller firmly in hand and invigorates it with an irreverent but always on-target mix of humor...Matturro's Skinny-Dipping and fellow Floridian James O. Born's Walking Money may prove to be among the best debuts of 2004." Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"One of the funniest mysteries I've read in ages." Les Roberts, The Plain Dealer
"Lilly's voice is irrepressible, but it's not just the smart narration and good dialogue -- Matturro, a former appellate attorney, has the legal stuff down pat." Publishers Weekly
A 2004 BookSense Pick!
Named Best First Mystery 2004 by Romantic Times
One of Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel's "Best Debut Novels of 2004"
First Mystery Club Pick for November 2004 at Poisoned Pen Bookstore (Scottsdale, AZ)
Nominated for a Barry Award for Best First Mystery
Wayward Girls--First Place winner in Seven Hills Literary Contest, Young Adult, Dec. 2015
Wayward Girls--Finalist in the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards. (First Place Winner to be announced October 2016).
RefugeesFinalist in the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards. (First Place Winner to be announced October 2016)
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Coming soon--Refugees won First Place in Seven Hills Adult Fiction Literary Contest
Can love and faith triumph over the devastation of war and reconstruction in the brutal landscape of 1865 Alabama?
Naomi-Clare’s world is gone, destroyed by the Civil War. Her black mother and white father are lost to her. General Lee’s surrender brings neither peace nor safety in Alabama, where nearly everything of value is destroyed. Naomi-Clare selfishly plans her escape to an easier life up north as a white woman. But will the love of a black Union soldier building a new world for freed slaves lead her to faith—and a change of heart?
Cover photograph by Becky Lindsey Shaw, used with permission.
Read more about Wayward Girls on the Bio Page.
Wayward Girls--First Place winner in Seven Hills Literary Contest, Young Adult, Dec. 2015
Wayward Girls--A Finalist in the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards. (First Place Winner to be announced October 2016).
