From Publishers Weekly
In Harris's cute second dirty business mystery (after 2008's Pushing Up Daisies), landscape designer Paula Holliday is thrilled when her TV producer friend, Lucy Cavanaugh, suggests an all-expenses-paid getaway for the two of them to the Titans Hotel in Connecticut wine country. Paula even wangles a Springfield Bulletin gig to write about the titan arum (aka the corpse flower) on display under glass in the hotel lobby because the bloom smells so bad. When Lucy fails to appear and the dead body of new acquaintance Nick Vigoriti turns up on the hotel's loading dock, Paula considers returning home. Det. Stacy Winters's investigation persuades a TV reporter that Paula is a person of interest in Nick's murder, but Paula is more worried she might become the killer's next victim. The nifty puzzle that unfolds involves Native American casinos, mysterious Russians and that stinky slow-blooming flower.
Well, "cute" isn't exactly an adjective I would use to describe this book. Paula Holliday falls into the Stephanie Plum wannabe category--smart, snarky dialogue, sharply drawn characters. My favorite of the supporting cast is Wanda "Babe" Chinnery, owner of the Paradise Diner.
I will probably put the third in the series, Dead Head, on my library reserve list but feel that I know enough about Paula that reading the first in the series, Pushing Up Daisies, won't be necessary.
Rating: 3/5 (Mystery Scale)
No comments:
Post a Comment