Murder Between the Covers

Of course I could not resist picking up a used copy of this title, a mystery with bookstore employee Helen Hawthorne as the protagonist. This is actually the 2nd installment (of 15 books to date) in the "Dead End Job" mystery series by prolific mystery writer Elaine Viets. Helen works a dead-end job in each book, many of which Viets claims to have worked in herself. Viets has written several other mystery series, which she says allows her to appeal to a wide variety of reader preferences. This series is her "funny and traditional" one.
In this book, Helen is working as a cashier at the Page Turners bookstore in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, getting paid off the books and keeping her head down to avoid an abusive ex-husband and the long arm of the law. We don't find out what she's done until midway through the book. She is living in a funky, run-down old apartment, infested with termites and run by a very colorful landlady. She has rather eccentric neighbors, but her philosophy is live and let live. No one is surprised when her misogynistic boss, book store owner Page Turner III, gets murdered. He had a lot of enemies--ex-wife, ex-employees, etc., but Helen is upset when her neighbor Peggy is accused of the murder. She decides to try and find out who did it to keep her friend out of jail.