Cutting Loose in Paradise is a mystery novel set in a remote island full of quirky people off the northeast coast of Florida. The story involves the death of a middle-aged woman who supposedly committed suicide by shooting herself in the chest. But local hair stylist and single mom LaRue Panther has her doubts. When part-Seminole LaRue is cutting the dead woman's hair in the casket, she realizes the woman's neck has been slashed and that there is no wound in the chest. LaRue and her local friends, a bartender and a journalist, are on the case to find out what really happened.