It’s oft been said that Miami lacks a social problem novel. Something about this town just makes it hard for writers to tackle our poverty, race relations, immigration issues, and political corruption without turning the whole thing into a sexy crime story. Talk about loving your symptom.

If anyone could be expected to break that streak, it would have been two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Liz Balmaseda, late of the Miami Herald and lately found on the pages of the Palm Beach Post. But, as Balmaseda told the Knight Arts blog during the Miami Book Fair International, she didn’t want to write a novel about the same topics she covers in her day job — or at least not in the same way.

For Sweet Mary, Balmaseda ripped a story from the headlines about an ordinary woman who was mistaken for a drug dealer and let her imagination go. While the mix up was quickly cleared up in real life, Balmaseda describes what might have happened had her suburban mom had to take measures into her own hands and find the real culprit herself. It all adds up to the usual Miami crime scenes with sexy babes, smoking barrels, and perps who share favorite recipes. Well, okay, Balmaseda does put a new twist on the established genre, with suburban gun moms take the place of the old gun molls.

Sweet Mary is just sweet enough to make a perfect holiday stocking stuffer.