 |
| |
|
Elaine Viets is the author of two national bestselling mystery series.
Her Dead-End Job series is a satiric look at the minimum wage world. Elaine and her character, Helen Hawthorne, work a different low-paying job each book. They've been everything from bookstore clerks to hotel maids.
Elaine's second series, featuring Josie Marcus, looks at the pink-collar world of mystery shopping. It debuted with Dying in Style.
Elaine won the Agatha and Anthony Awards.
|
|
Ninth in the Dead-End Job Mystery series:
Half-Price Homicide |
| |
 |
| |
Tired of living life on the lam, Helen Hawthorne goes back to St. Louis to clear her name of alimony evasion so she can remarry.
Signed first printing. |
| |
| Hard cover / $22.95 |
 |
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Fifth in the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series:
Fashion Hound Murders |
| |
 |
| |
|
Signed first printing will be available after 11/4/09 |
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Eighth in the Dead-End Job Mystery series:
Killer Cuts |
| |
 |
| |
Helen is working in Miguel Angel's Ft. Lauderdale hair salon. When one of the salon's most famous clients, gossip blogger Kingman "King" Oden is murdered at his own wedding, Miguel is named a prime suspect.
Signed first printing |
| |
| Hard cover / $22.95 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Seventh in the Dead-End Job Mystery series:
Clubbed to Death |
| |
 |
| |
Helen is dealing with the gripes of the rich and spoiled at the Superior Country Club complaint department. Helen's ex-husband Rob shows up with his wealthy girlfriend Marcella, aka the Black Widow.
The bodies start to pile up when Rob goes missing and a club patron is discovered with his membership permanently expired.
|
| |
| Hard cover / $21.95 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Sixth in the Dead-End Job Mystery series:
Murder with Reservations |
| |
 |
| |
Helen Hawthorne is cleaning rooms at Sybil's Full Moon Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale. When police investigate the murder of another maid, Helen fears that she will be discovered by her two-timing ex-husband.
|
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Fifth in the Dead-End Job Mystery series:
Murder Unleashed |
| |
 |
| |
Helen Hawthorne is working at a Fort Lauderdale dog boutique, selling canine clothes and cuisine and learning about the world of rabid dog lovers. She meets the women who buy designed purses to sneak their pets into pricey condos. The folks who spend major money on dog birthday parties. The talented groomers who fall into artistic rages.
And Lulu, the store's four-legged supermodel, who has more clothes, manicures, massages and hair appointments than Helen.
When a trophy-wife customer winds up dead and Helen is the chief suspect, her life is definitely going to the dogs. |
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Fourth in the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series:
Murder With All the Trimmings |
| |
 |
| |
|
|
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Third in the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series:
Accessory to Murder |
| |
 |
| |
|
Retail spy and single mom Josie Marcus investigates the murder of hot young designer Halley Hardwicke when Josie's best friend's husband is accused of murder. |
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
Second in the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series:
High Heels are Murder |
| |
 |
| |
Josie Marcus mystery-shops a shoe store and gets caught up in St. Louis's underbelly.
|
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
First in the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series:
Dying in Style |
| |
 |
| |
Josie Marcus's job as an undercover shopping policewoman takes her to boutiques, supermarkets and fast-food shops to report on quality and service.
When a large company considers paying millions for use of the prestigious Danessa name, Josie is hired to inspect the designer's stores anonymously. A less than stellar report from Josie, combined with Danessa found strangled with one of her own thousand-dollar snakeskin belts, puts the pressure on Josie to find the killer or go to jail.
|
| |
| Paperback / $6.99 |
|
|
|
|
| To order email us at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
|
| |
|
| Murder Unleashed |
| by Stephanie Saxon Levine |
| |
Okay, I admit it. I’m a confirmed fan of Elaine Viets. Her plotting is inventive, her characters endearing, or despicable, and her writing frequently laugh-out-loud amusing. So I am predisposed to enjoy her books. Even so, Murder Unleashed exceeded my expectations in all respects.
Those who’ve read the other books in the series know that Helen Hawthorne is a woman on the run from St. Louis, where she left a lucrative career and a luxurious lifestyle behind. To avoid making support payments to her philandering, work-phobic ex-husband, Helen must work at a series of dead-end jobs to support herself and her anonymity. In this outing, she is employed in a dog boutique in Ft. Lauderdale, where she waits on the creme-de-la-creme of canine society, and their sometimes peculiar owners. When a customer is murdered and Helen discovers the body, she must hide the evidence of her visit, in order to maintain her alias. Of course, this leads to complications, making her a prime suspect. What’s more, Helen becomes the target of unwelcome attentions from several other suspects. All this happens while Ft. Lauderdale, and all of South Florida, hunkers down for an impending hurricane.
It’s refreshing to be able to laugh at such a sequence of events, and this is a gift that Elaine Viets gives her readers. Viets’ voice, and, by extension, Helen’s, is so humorous that I found myself chuckling at the most improbable of scenes.
What’s more, Elaine actually works at the dead-end jobs for months before she writes each book. This gives her works an authenticity which they otherwise might lack.
All in all, if you’re looking for an amusing murder mystery with a local milieu, you won’t go wrong with Murder Unleashed. |
| |
| You may contact Stephanie Saxon Levine at murdermb@gate.net |
| |
| Posted 08-06-2006 |
| |
| |
|
