Dead On Her Feet - Hardcover

Jorgensen, Christine T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802733344 ISBN 13: 9780802733344

Publisher: Walker Books, 1999

Synopsis

When Stella takes a theater company job, working as a gofer and keeper of a problematic stage mother, she discovers one of the founders of the troupe dead--someone with more money that talent--leading Stella into a dangerous investigation.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Actually, Barbara Steadman isn't dead on her feet, though there's scarcely a member of the Magic Circle Theater who wouldn't cheer if she were. Instead, the overbearing writer/producer's been strangled merely within an inch of her life, and as she hovers between life and death, her family and friends take turns dishing out phony enconiums while Stella the Stargazer, hoping to supplement her meager salary from the Denver Daily Orion's astrological-advice-to-the-lovelorn column by acting as assistant director for the Magic Circle's latest production, tries to figure out which of them tried to kill her. The play, a Garden of Eden fantasy by La Steadman herself, presumably contains the secret to her attacker's identity, but despite Barbara's pre-strangulation claim that it works ``on several levels,'' the allegory is so vague that the snake of the play could be almost anybody: Barbara's husband and partner Lawrence Steadman, their teenaged son Phillip, Magic Circle director Ogden Bane, stage manager Cammie Dinkum, or bookkeeper Rachel Vincentnot to mention Phillip's buddies Linc and Judd, a pair of juvies so unsavory they don't even have last names. Stella duly ferrets out the secrets of the Magic Circle, though by and large they're no more interesting than your Aunt Rose's, en route to still another unsuccessful homicide before the killer finally strikes gold just before getting struck down by Stella. Low-grade puzzling tweaked by complications in Stella's love lifewill she follow Orion reporter Jason Paul to the Big Apple?and more of the unexpectedly warm sympathy for adolescents she showed in Death of a Dustbunny (1998). -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Stella the Stargazer's eyes are on a different kind of luminary in this fifth installment of the Denver-based series (Death of a Dustbunny, etc.). An irrepressible adviser to the lovelorn, Stella, who contributes a column to the Denver Daily Orion, is moonlighting as an assistant director with a local theater to earn the extra money she needs to keep her pet chameleons in chow. When Barbara, the playwright and stage motherAshort on talent, long on attitudeAwho's paying Stella's salary, is nearly murdered during a rehearsal, Stella realizes that her job will entail much more than just cueing the actors. The prime suspect is Barbara's son, the star of the show and a vulnerable waif who's had previous problems with the law. But with her abrasive personality, Barbara has given lots of people reason to wish her dead. Even her awful play, The Garden of Iden, which features a misunderstood snake, reveals personal histories some would prefer to forget. While Stella is doing her best to exonerate the son, she's also coping with her utterly ineffective day boss, Mr. Gerster, as well as with her love interest, Jason. There's lots of action here, but Jorgensen is at her best in the newsroom. The theater scenes only limp along. Aside from Stella and her personality-laden pets, the cast is forgettable. When the final curtain closes on a confusing ending, few readers will toss flowers. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0802733344
• ISBN 13: 9780802733344
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256