One Tough Cookie

About the Book

A Watsonville High School student has dumped poison into a batch of cookie dough, making the entire faculty sick. Baker/amateur sleuth Carol Sabala assists the Home Economics teacher in solving the matter. While Carol tracks down the cookie culprit, someone shoves a beautiful, talented, pregnant teenaged girl from a catwalk to her death.  The victim, Jennifer Padilla, was to star in the school´s production of South Pacific.  

Because Carol´s investigation of the cookie dough incident has led to interviews with Jennifer Padilla and other members of the South Pacific cast, Carol seizes the opportunity to solve the murder mystery.  Why would a popular, Yale?bound student with no apparent boyfriend allow herself to have a baby?  Who was the father of Jennifer Padilla´s unborn child? Did the father kill Jennifer?  Carol determinedly seeks answers in spite of her husbands objections, and in spite of the person who shoots at her through her bedroom window.

The charismatic teacher Richard Goicovich, accused of sexual harassment by Jennifer Padilla, offers one possible suspect for the murder, as does his jealous wife, who teaches the Teenaged Mothers Program at the school.  No one is eager to help Carol. Staff ranging from the campus policeman to the head custodian attended Watsonville High School together and they present a loyal and formidable front.  

In this case, however, Jennifer Padilla had the upper hand, seducing one of the susceptible male teachers in order to become pregnant, and then profiting both by blackmailing the father and accepting a bribe to choose her drama teacher and her lesbian partner as adoptive parents for the baby.

Like the underscoring musical South Pacific, the murder mystery One Tough Cookie explores the theme of racism.  It also inspects the issue of sexual harassment in schools and the sexual dynamics between easily infatuated, flirtatious high school girls and popular male teachers.

Ultimately, Carol Sabala wrestles with the baby´s father, the murderer, on the same stage where Jennifer Padilla died.  With the help of a hot glue gun and two students, Carol and justice prevail.

About the Author

A high-school English teacher for sixteen years, Vinnie Hansen lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband, artist Daniel Friedman, and their very spoiled cat Lola.