Half-Price Homicide: A Dead-End Job Mystery - Hardcover

Viets, Elaine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0451229894 ISBN 13: 9780451229892

Publisher: Berkley, 2010

Synopsis

The national bestselling author presents a high society murder mystery...

At Snapdragon, a high-end designer consignment shop, Helen is at the beck and call of snobby- yet frugal-customers. That alone is a deadly combination, especially with Chrissy, a drool-worthy fashionista who walks in with a purse to sell, and ends up screaming at her husband and another customer.

Helen is used to dealing with snobby women, controlling husbands, and fashionable politicians. But she's about to have to handle a brand new type of unsatisfied customer-a murderer. Chrissy is found dead in Snapdragon's dressing room, with the hand-painted scarf Helen was just holding tied around her neck. And Helen goes from being low on society's totem pole to high on the police's suspect list.

About this title

About the Author

Elaine Viets has actually worked those dead-end jobs in her mystery novels,just like her character, Helen Hawthorne. Over the years, Elaine has been a dress store clerk, phone book proofreader, babysitter, telemarketer, bookseller, and weed puller at fifty cents a bucket.  She is also the author of the Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper series and numerous short stories. Elaine has won an Anthony Award and an Agatha Award. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with her husband, author and actor Don Crinklaw.  Please visit her blog: The Lipstick Chronicles.

Reviews

Starred Review. A posh Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resale shop provides the snazzy scene of the crime in Viets's superior ninth mystery starring Helen Hawthorne, the queen of dead-end jobs and magnet for murder (after 2009's Killer Cuts). Helen and Vera Salinda, the owner of Snapdragon's Second Thoughts, are shocked when Chrissy Martlet, a wealthy developer's sexy trophy wife, is found fatally bonked on the head with a Limoges pineapple, then hung with a Gucci scarf after trying to sell Vera some of her designer goods. Identifying Chrissy's killer as well as the culprit who bashes in the head of a model friend with a beer bottle tests Helen's sleuthing abilities to the limit. A teasing plot twist serves up a reminder that even if her greedy ex-husband, Rob, might finally stop pestering her and better jobs appear, there are still mountains to climb before Helen can rest easy with Phil, her PI honey. Viets doesn't waste a word in this tight, fast-paced installment as she deftly balances comedy and tragedy. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451229894
• ISBN 13: 9780451229892
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272