Reporter Bertie Mallowan is ready to auction her kidneys to the highest bidder for an interview with entrepreneur Robert Bellingham, whose exclusive product (like stationery made from the recycled cereal boxes of Tibetan monks - holy Cheerios!) are the must-haves for Southern California’s rich and jaded.   Kidneys intact, she gets the interview but two days later Bellingham is murdered, giving Bertie a page one story and a thirst for more.  She jumps into the suspect pool – Bellingham’s family – and as she navigates through their neuroses she discovers that the rich aren’t just different from you and me, in the Bellinghams’ case they’re dangerous nuts, too. Danger comes Bertie's way - can she survive a stalker, an attempted murder, and life as a murder suspect? 

“Trashy Chic”  interlaces humor with the grim realities of the newspaper industry’s decline. It’s a trek through the woo-woo and uh-oh neighborhoods of L.A. that takes Bertie to the edge of disaster.

"Trashy Chic" was the San Diego Book Award winner for Best Unpublished Novel of 2009.
          
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SAN DIEGO  UNION-TRIBUNE REVIEW: “Trashy Chic: A Bertie Mallowan Mystery” by Cathy Lubenski The debut novel by former San Diego Union-Tribune staffer Cathy Lubenski is a laugh-out-loud romp, with snappy writing and a twisted plot.