Book Reviews: Yappy Hour by Diana Orgain and Faux Paw by Sofie Kelly

Yappy Hour
Diana Orgain
Minotaur Books, November 2015
ISBN 978-1-250-06911-5
Hardcover

Maggie has left NYC and her life as a financial adviser (thank you, economic turn-down) to return to her hometown, Pacific Cove, CA, and apply for a purser’s berth at a local cruise line. But before she can, her sister Rachel texts, asking her to take over The Wine and Bark, Rachel’s bar, which caters to a dog-loving clientele. Maggie isn’t a dog person and knows nothing about mixing drinks or running a business and there’s a dead body on the tile floor of the bar. What is she to do?

This book has a slapstick vibe. I thought of Evanovich right away. Maggie sometimes acts like an idiot, but at least she knows it. Rachael’s customers, especially Yolanda, and her horse-race-mad Uncle Ernest, AKA Grunkly, provide plenty of complications as she tries to figure out who killed Dan, a man Rachel once dated, now possibly her enemy. And where is Rachel? On a cruise? Eloping? Running from the cops? A hunky policeman and a hunky chef-next-door add even more complications for our heroine.

I enjoyed the story and the setting. Yolanda’s Beepo, a Yorkie who behaves badly at every opportunity, made me laugh. He also made me glad I have a sweet, friendly Papillion. I’d happily read another book about Maggie and her new world.

Reviewed by Marilyn Nulman, October 2015.

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Faux Paw
A Magical Cats Mystery #7
Sofie Kelly
Obsidian, October 2015
ISBN 978-0-451-47215-1
Mass Market Paperback

Librarians are my heroes. And I love cats. Especially magical cats, like Owen and Hercules. So I was happy to find Sofie Kelly‘s latest book about Kathleen Paulson and her boys. A traveling art exhibit is about to grace Mayville Height’s library. As library director, Kath is excited and a bit nervous. If all goes well, the show will benefit the library and the local artists who were invited to contribute to it. But disaster crashes her hopes. Kath finds the exhibit’s curator dead on the library floor. Murdered.

This is a small-town mystery, so Kath knows who to ask about this and that as she tries to help her policeman boyfriend discover the killer. Ryan has built an interesting cast of characters who help move the investigation forward, or shove it sideways. I was glad to see old friends and meet some new ones.

Though magical (Owen can become invisible, Hercules can walk through walls,) they are still cats, with all the charm and all the ability to frustrate and annoy of their kind. They are feuding. Why is another mystery to be solved, if possible.

I was happy to return to Mayville, where friends help each other and the gossip is not toxic. Most of the time. I recommend this book.

Reviewed by Marilyn Nulman, October 2015.

Book Review: Checked Out by Elaine Viets

Checked Out
A Dead-End Job Mystery #14
Elaine Viets
Obsidian, May 2015
ISBN 978-0-451-46632-7
Hardcover

Checked Out, A Dead-End Job Mystery is number fourteen in this Elaine Viets series. I was looking forward to this book because I knew it involved a library and a missing John Singer Sargent painting. Helen Hawthorne is our hired investigator, this time volunteering in the public library to shelve books, not exactly a dead-end job but maybe I’m being too nit-picky.

There were three mysteries in the book – locating the missing painting, a robbery and a murder. Helen’s husband, Phil, handles much of the robbery on his own. The perpetrator of one of the mysteries is so obvious even our main character knows but proving it is another thing.

It is the murder mystery that is at the heart of the book, with a handful of possible perpetrators. They are easily divided into two groups: one group of likely candidates and another group of nice respectable people.  No reveal here.

There’s a séance as well, a cat by the name of Paris lives in the library, and an extremely uncooperative police detective who antagonizes Helen. Lots to like here, I recommend it.

Reviewed by Constance Reader, July 2015.

Book Review: How to Dine on Killer Wine

How to Dine on Killer Wine
A Party Planning Mystery #5
Penny Warner
Obsidian, July 2012
ISBN 978-0-451-23786-6
Mass Market Paperback

If you are a wine connoisseur, of even if you like to tipple, you will enjoy the setting, plot line, and ambiance of this delightful and fun filled mystery, How to Dine on Killer Wine.

Presley Parker is a new Party-Event-Planner, struggling to get her business off the ground. When asked to coordinate, cater and present an unusual launch party for a new wine at a famous Napa, California winery and California Culinary College, she believes it will provide an open door to the rich and famous in the wine world. And indeed, she meets an ex-Governor and other celebrities who plan to engage her future services. But, when a dead body appears under one of the serving tables, she sets about to prove the innocence of winery owner, Rob Christopher, accused of murder.

Delightful sub-characters include her eccentric Bingo-addicted mother, her part-time actress assistant and her boyfriend, Brad, who cleans up the blood at crime scenes. His connection with the Vallejo police department comes in handy when clues are normally withheld from the public.

It seems that the murder victim, JoAnne Douglas, has made so many enemies in the Napa Valley, that Presley is hard pressed to single out one from another. She has reason to suspect multiple friends and family near and dear to Rob Christopher, including his attorney, his wife’s sister and the guy at the rival winery next door.

Throughout the book, each chapter begins with a delightful tip of how to throw your own wine tasting event. Tip 7 –Chapter Seven: Don’t smoke, eat hard candy or mints or wear perfume. Keep your palate and nostrils free from taste-altering substances. Chocolate, however, is perfectly acceptable.

As the suspects multiply and Presley closes in on her prime suspect, she faces a desperate killer and barely escapes with her life…a true cozy mystery template ending, but all in all, a delightful read. Reading How to Dine on Killer Wine is a fun way to spend an afternoon with a good book, a chocolate bar and if you are so inclined, a glass of wine.

Reviewed by Elaine Faber, September 2014.
Author of Black Cat’s Legacy.

Book Review: Murder with Ganache by Lucy Burdette

Murder With Ganache 
A Key West Food Critic Mystery, Book 4       
Lucy Burdette
Obsidian, February 2014
ISBN: 978-0-451-46589-4
Mass Market Paperback

Haley Snow is the multi-tasking, scooter-ing food critic for a Key West periodical called Key Zest. Besides her job, checking out restaurant fare on the island at the foot of the nation, she dodges killers, manages to avoid calamity among her divorced parents, and tries to manage her best friend’s impending wedding.

In addition to all that she has to ride herd on her own potentially emotional entanglements with her boss at the magazine while dodging a vengeful investor. Readers get a good look at one of the most idiosyncratic communities in the nation, and, in this book, a clutch of almost dysfunctional relatives.

Haley and her mother are good friends, but when Haley’s best buddy decides to get married on a Key West beach, trouble, in the form of a teen-aged half-brother, and somewhat estranged relations who show up for the wedding inevitably follows. Then the kid disappears. Domestic crises run the gamut from mild disengagement to full-throated meddling and accusations of various malfeasances. It’s all a bit much. Meanwhile, cats mutilate a batch of cupcakes destined for the wedding reception.

It all gets sorted out in the end, but the plot wanders a bit too much for my taste, there are too many trying relatives and every so often some less than vital facts get distorted. I have always enjoyed Burdette’s writing and plotting, but I had a persistent feeling that this one was rushed into print lacking a bit of the author’s usual meticulous attention to detail.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, March 2014.
Author of Red Sky, Devils Island, Hard Cheese, Reunion.

Book Reviews: Board Stiff by Elaine Viets, Always Watching by Chevy Stevens, and Joyland by Stephen King

Board Stiff
Elaine Viets
Obsidian, May 2013
ISBN: 978-0-451-23985-3
Hardcover

Elaine Viets’ newest entry in the Dead End Job Mysteries begins shortly after her protagonists, Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont, have gotten married and started a private detective agency out of their condo office in Riggs Beach, Florida, a beach town just south of Fort Lauderdale.

Helen and Phil, now in their mid-40’s, with a reputation as the best private eyes in South Florida, are hired to work undercover for a paddleboard rental concession owner in Riggs Beach, where he needs help finding out who is behind the vandalism and sabotage at his business, theft of his equipment, and competitors who seem to really want to put him out of business.  The couple accepts the job, Helen feeling that “I’m getting paid to sleep late and sit on the beach,” and Phil that he can get paid while sitting drinking beer with some guys on the beach trying to gain their confidence and information, seemingly a win-win situation.

The crimes have been reported to the authorities, but they are convinced that no “official action” can be expected in a town like Riggs Beach (known as Rigged Beach since Prohibition days and rumored to be fairly uniformly corrupt).  Their client’s problems multiply exponentially when a female tourist, one of his clients, tragically dies; he is threatened with revocation of his license and the City lease on his valuable beach property, as well as a wrongful death lawsuit by the victim’s husband.  Helen and Phil are tasked with proving their client was blameless in her death.

Things become more complicated, on a more personal level when a situation regarding Helen’s sleazy ex-husband, thought dead, comes back to haunt them, almost literally, affecting their marriage and their partnership, and overshadowing the case they are trying to solve.

Ms. Viets always manages to come up with a good old-fashioned mystery, which, while containing a murder or two, is more lighthearted and contains less blood and gore than many others in the genre, and is a decidedly pleasant way to spend a summer, or even late summer, day. It is, as were the prior books by this author, recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, September 2013.

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Always Watching
Chevy Stevens
St. Martin’s Press, June 2013
ISBN:  978-0-312-59569-2
Hardcover

The story at the heart of this newest book by Chevy Stevens deals with a subject not touched upon to my knowledge in years: communes, popular in decades past among “hippies” [a seemingly archaic term], and the total subjugation of their followers.  Imagine my amazement when, as I was about to finish reading this engrossing tale, I discovered an article on the front page of a section of that day’s Sunday NY Times dealing with the enormous following of a group in San Francisco which holds “guided meditations . . . [long] wait lists for panel talks and conferences [that] now run into the hundreds,” even discussing a “meditation app” that can be downloaded.  I felt as though the lines could have been placed whole into the narrative of Ms. Stevens’ new book.

The protagonist is Dr. Nadine Lavoie (who readers met in the author’s earlier novels), attending psychiatrist at the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit in Victoria, British Columbia, whose newest patient is Heather Simeon, involuntarily committed after a suicide attempt, her third try, this time by slashing her wrists.  She and her husband of six months were both members of what can only be described as a cult, located on the outskirts of Shawnigan Lake, on the tip of Vancouver Island, calling itself The River of Life Spiritual Center.  When Nadine hears these details, memories come flooding back to her:  Now 55, when she was a young girl in the late ‘60’s, she and her mother and brother had lived for 8 months in a commune run by the same man, then only 22 years old.  That period had left her with devastating memories, worse than which are the blank spaces among them, knowing only that she has suffered from panic attacks and severe claustrophobia ever since.

Nadine’s life is a very troubled one, coming as she did from a dysfunctional family; in addition, she has recently been widowed, and has a 25-year-old daughter who had left home at 18, become a drug addict, and is now living on the streets.  As she deals with this situation, she delves into Heather’s recent past, as well as her own early years, trying to fill in the blanks, for all of which she must confront the commune and its leader, almost dreading the answers for which she searches.

The novel, suspenseful and at times grueling, is not easily forgotten when the book is put down, and it is recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, November 2013.

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Joyland
Stephen King
Hard Case Crime, June 2013
ISBN: 978-1-781-16264-4
Trade Paperback

Devlin Jones (“Dev” or “Jonesy”), now a writer in his sixties, reminisces about the summer of 1973 when he decided to take a year off from his college studies and take a job as a carny in a North Carolina amusement park, 700 miles from his home town of Durham, New Hampshire. This is basically the plot of the newest novel by Stephen King.  But whatever preconceptions the reader might have about a book by this most prolific and best-selling novelist, be prepared to set them aside; I know I had to!  And I mean that in the best way possible.

The tale opens in 1973, when the protagonist was a self-proclaimed 21-year-old virgin.  He had just had his heart broken by his first love, and his life suddenly becomes one wholly inhabited by carny workers, as well as a ‘boy and a woman and their dog.’  Most of the summer hires are “college students willing to work for peanuts.” There is a backstory involving a dead girl killed in the amusement park years before, and four similar murders in Georgia and the Carolinas, all of young girls.   Of course, there is also the ghost in the funhouse.  Towards the end, things turn suddenly darker on, of course, an unforgettable “dark and stormy night.”

The novel is utterly absorbing, fast-reading, and very moving.  As always, Hard Case Crime has done a wonderful job of bringing us a book that may seem a throw-back to a simpler time.  And I mean that in the best way possible as well.  The novel is simply terrific, and highly recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, December 2013.

Book Reviews: Lost by S. J. Bolton, Murder Is a Piece of Cake by Elaine Viets, and The Boyfriend by Thomas Perry

Lost
S. J. Bolton
Minotaur Books, June 2013
ISBN:  978-1-250-02856-3
Hardcover

The current obsession of Barney Roberts, a bright young boy with OCD, is something with which many in London are currently preoccupied:  Five boys his age had disappeared in the last five weeks in South London, where Barney himself lives, their bodies turning up soon afterwards with their throats cut.  And as the book opens, the bodies are being found more and more quickly, the killer seemingly escalating.  Barney’s den is covered with posters, maps and photographs about each boy, his kidnapping, and his death.

The police investigation is headed up by D.I. Dana Tulloch, of Lewisham’s Major Investigation Team.  Sure of only one thing, that the killings will continue, they have no clues.  And someone, perhaps the killer, is taunting them online.  On the periphery of the investigation is D.C. Lacey Flint, still recovering from the horrific event of her last case, in the aftermath of which she is still seeing a psychiatrist twice a week, fighting her own demons, unsure of whether or not still wants to remain a policewoman.

Barney is the youngest of a small group of kids (five boys and one girl) who are brave, and foolhardy, enough to do some investigating of their own.  He also happens to live next door to Lacey Flint.  One day he works up the nerve to ask her to help him find his mother, who apparently left several years ago, when he was four years old, and he is determined to track her down, going so far as to use all his meager wages working for a newsagent to run anonymous classified ads in very methodically and geographically plotted newspapers in London and beyond.

The novel is but the newest of several suspenseful books from this author, and characters, plotting and tension seen in her prior work are fully present here.  The reader is never more than guessing at the possible identity of the killer, as are the detectives whose work is detailed here, knowing that if they do not succeed another boy will die.  Obsession is a constant theme.  This is another winner from S. J. Bolton, and is recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, June 2013.

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Murder is a Piece of Cake
Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Series
Elaine Viets
Obsidian, November 2012
ISBN: 978-0-451-23851-1
Mass Market Paperback

The newest book in the Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper extraordinaire, has Josie tasked by her boss, “Harry the Horrible,” to mystery shop wedding flowers and wedding cakes for a St. Louis wedding website.  The timing couldn’t be better for Josie, who is in the throes of planning her own wedding.  The first of her mystery-shopper sites is Denise’s Dreams, where the sales associate who assists her is a young woman named Molly, who in the ensuing exchange divulges – – well, gushes – – that she is also about to get married.

Josie is a thirty-one-year-old single mom to Amelia, a ‘tween’ with the usual fast-changing sulky-to-“flawless!” mood changes.  Her life is about to undergo major changes, with her upcoming wedding to local veterinarian Dr. Ted, scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, five weeks away as the story opens.  Their combined pets include Stuart Little, Josie’s shih tzu, her cat Harry, Ted’s cat Marmalade and his black Labrador, Festus.

One week later, shortly after Josie arrives at Ted’s veterinary clinic one morning, a surreal scene unfolds:  the self-same Molly, dressed in all her bridal finery, exits a Bentley and pushes her way into the clinic, claiming she’s there to pick up Ted en route to their wedding.  Clearly delusional, the scene ends with Molly picking up a scalpel and attacking Ted when he insists that he is indeed shortly to be married, but to Josie.  Ted’s mother, also present, disarms her, brandishing the pistol she always carried in her purse.  To cut to the chase, “mad Molly” is arrested and charged with assault.  She is soon released from jail by a sympathetic judge, but the melodrama continues when, continuing to stalk Ted, she is shot to death in her car in the clinic parking lot.  Things only get worse when Ted’s “Boca diva” mother is arrested, as her gun proves to be the murder weapon.

The book was a delightful change of pace for this reader, contrasted with other fare of thrillers and serial killers.  Besides an intriguing murder mystery with several possible culprits, it offers a few mouthwatering culinary tidbits, and culminates in several pages of shopping tips for wedding-related purchases, from flowers for various segments of the Big Day, bling, cakes, etc.  Following which is a peek at the next offering in Ms. Viets’ Dead-End Job Mystery series, Board Stiff, published by Obsidian in May 2013, which I have the good fortune to have in my towering TBR/R pile – – more to come on that soon!

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, May 2013.

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The Boyfriend
Thomas Perry
The Mysterious Press, March 2013
ISBN 978-0-8021-2606-1
Hardcover

The protagonist and his adversary in this newest terrific, suspenseful read from Thomas Perry have many similarities:  Both Jack Till, retired LAPD homicide detective now working as a private investigator, and the man he nicknames The Boyfriend are both highly intelligent, patient, meticulous, proficient with various kinds of weaponry, and very lethal.  Mostly they are both loners.  Till, however, has a daughter with Down Syndrome of whom he is very protective.  His wife had left them and divorced him shortly after she was diagnosed, unable to cope.  Holly is now 28 years old, employed at a florist shop and living in a group home where she is well looked after.  Till had retired after 23 years as a cop, and now embarks upon a relentless search for a killer.

The man Till is seeking is completely cold-blooded.  He preys upon young, beautiful women, all of a very similar physical type, and all ‘working girls,’ albeit highly-paid escorts earning several thousand dollars a day, as opposed to streetwalkers.  And all very vulnerable to the young, good-looking charmer, to their peril.  He has apparently killed several of them in all different parts of the country.  He has come to Till’s attention when the parents of the latest victim seek his help, when the police have, literally, no clues as to his identity.  He agrees to take the case and undertakes the investigation, and soon uncovers the connection to the other murders.  After 23 years as a cop, he “had an instinctive sense that this man was something he hadn’t seen before.”

Thomas Perry is the author, among his 21 previous books, of the wonderful Jane Whitefield series, and his newest is as much a page-turner as were those novels.  He manages an ending that is wonderfully elegant.  This was a terrific read, and is highly recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, July 2013.

Book Review: Topped Chef by Lucy Burdette

Topped Chef
A Key West Food Critic Mystery
Lucy Burdette
Obsidian/Penguin Group, May 2013
ISBN: 9780451239709
Mass Market Paperback

Murder and felonious maneuverings behind the scenes of a cable TV cooking show, set on one of the more exotic Florida Islands, plus some tasty recipes, and what more could you want for a delightful summer read?

Lucy Burdette, the veteran crime novelist she is, has produced another tasty offering. Even the often tongue-in-cheek epigrams feed the fun. Haley Snow, budding food critic has a job with a struggling Key West magazine called Key Zest. Reviewing restaurant meals is never an easy assignment and in Key West where local opinions on almost anything can run fast and hot, restaurant reports can be easy targets. Haley’s boss signs her up to be a judge on a nascent reality TV cooking show. The program, called “Topped Chef”, has the potential to make the featured chef a wealthy star, so tension is high.

Then murder intervenes when one of the judges is found dead in rather bizarre circumstances. Reluctantly, although she is a bit of a nosy gossip, Haley probes the circumstances of the murder while still trying to maintain some semblance of neutrality as the judging progresses and the program is videotaped. Haley Snow is not cast in the mold of a Sam Spade, she doesn’t own a gun and has to rely on her wits most times. She gets around town on a motor scooter. The novel is peopled with gender-shifting, cross-dressing, homeless and even some tourists of questionable attitudes. They all add to the fun and the pulsing rhythms of the tourist mecca that is Key West.

Consider the title of the novel which can be read in at least three ways, possibly more. The title is either a clue to the solution or a flaming red herring. Readers will have to decide. Then go on to consider the names of some of the characters, Turtle, Sam Rizzoli, Randy, Peter, and so on. The novel is clean, smoothly written, from the capable hands of an excellent writer. As an added bonus there are several tasty recipes in the back of the book. Well done, I say, well done.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, June 2013.
Author of Red Sky, Devils Island, Hard Cheese, Reunion.