Dead Beat and Deadly (Charlie Plato Mysteries) - Hardcover

Chittenden, Margaret

3.7

54 ratings by Goodreads

9781575663142: Dead Beat and Deadly (Charlie Plato Mysteries)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575663147 ISBN 13: 9781575663142

Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp, 1998

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Nightclub owner and occasional sleuth Charlie Plato decides to take a self-defense class and befriends Estrella--a woman abused by her husband--and when Estrella is murdered, Charlie, along with her business partner Zack Hunter, plunges into a world where nothing is what it seems and danger lurks around every corner.

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From Publishers Weekly:

In the third Charlie Plato mystery (after Dead Men Don't Dance, 1997), the gangly, irrepressibly curious part-owner of a country/western bar called CHAPS outside San Francisco will please fans of frothy, breathless fare, but not many others. Charlie has organized a self-defense course to be taught in the bar. Filipina Estrella Stockton stands out among the students because of the seriousness with which she takes the classAa seriousness that might have something to do with the bruises on her arm. Sure enough, Estrella is murdered, and Charlie finds herself on the trail for clues, helped by her quirky sidekicks and business partners: TV idol Zack Hunter; Savanna Seabrook (described as "an African-American version of Dolly Parton"); and Angel Cervantes, a muscle-bound mensch with a precarious love life. Estrella turns out to have been a the mail-order bride (ordered over the World Wide Web) of Thane Stockton, who claims that she was ruining his life by running up bills and beating him up. She even killed his dog. To clear himself, Thane asks Zack and Charlie to find the real killer. The malodorous but congenial homeless man who discovered Estrella's body has some interesting information for Charlie, as does a gay bank guard named Domingo Romero. Throughout, Charlie's narration is breezy to a fault as she whispers silly asides and parades a lineup of one-dimensional characters before readers whose eyes may glaze. (Aug.) FYI: Kensington will simultaneously publish the mass market edition of Dead Men Don't Dance.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

After a narrow brush with death in Dead Men Don't Dance , Charlie Plato, manager of Chaps, a Bay Area country-western bar, decides she needs self-defense lessons. Trouble follows her to class, however, when the star pupil, Estrella, is murdered. More deaths follow as Charlie mounts her own investigation, aided by her business partner, movie star Zack Hunter, and police detective Taylor Bristow. This third entry in the series is easily the best. Chittenden spends more time on developing the mystery element and using the Bay Area setting to maximum effect, while wisely relegating the vapid Hunter to supporting character and letting Charlie and Bristow drive the investigation. This will appeal to fans of Earlene Hunter's Benni Harper (cowgirl) series and Toni Kelner's Laura Fleming novels. John Rowen

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