Motherlover essentially takes up where WHAT'S A MOTHER TO DO left off, but it is a stand-alone novel. It is substantially more erotic than the first book, a deliberate ploy designed to appeal to women readers, particularly those who enjoy erotic romance novels.
MOTHERLOVER is as much in the erotic romance genre as it is a private eye novel. Mavis, Frank "Big Mother" Harley's wife, is a lipstick lesbian who as numerous affairs with women, although she loves Frank desperately. She, being fair, tends to look the other way at Frank's infrequent dalliances. But the marriage is a troubled one, by its very nature, with divorce never far over the horizon. Frank, as a PI, is a perpetual target. Someone is always trying to kill him, and this time it's Stanley Goodman, who took the late Buddy Omaha's place as crime boss of the Midwest. Stanley is not usually a hands-on sort of guy, preferring to hire other to do his wet-work. He sends a succession of hit-men after Frank, each one deadlier than the last, including a female, Suzi Saffron, who has never missed. Suzi is known on the grapevine as the Black Mamba, because no one has ever survived one of attacks, and because she always dresses in black.
Suzi is also a lesbian, who falls deeply in love with Mavis, and aims to have her even if she ha to kidnap the woman.
Frank's world is crumbling around him. Mavis wants a divorce, his brother Hank is cheating him, his friends are deserting him, and he's sick of his sleazy private eye's life. He wants to retire and pursue his avocation as an artist who specializes in female nudes.
But most of all, he wants to keep Mavis out of the Black Mamba's clutches.
