Customer Reviews

Alpine for You : A Passport to Peril Mystery

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you like Janet Evanovich's books, you'll like this new series by Maddy Hunter. The laughs never stop coming, and yes, there's a mystery to solve. One by one, the elderly tourists on a group tour of Switzerland are dying under mysterious circumstances. Emily Andrew, who's accompanying her grandmother on the trip, helps a sexy police inspector in his investigations. I laughed hysterically all the way through the book, and I'm very much looking forward to the next book in this series. This will be one of my "Best Books of 2003". Highly recommended.

This is a great 'Who Done It'! It had me guessing a laughing all
through the book. Emily Andrew, a pretty and sexy unemployed
thespian, accompanies her spry grandmother on a trip to Switzerland
with a group of clicky senior citizens from Iowa. Low and behold
people in the group start dropping like flys and everyone becomes a suspect. Emily is forever getting wet whether it be from a faulty
shower, an unexpected dip in the river, or whenever the handsome
Inspector Miceli comes near.
An excellent development of the characters with a mix of mystery
and humor.

I love travel, mystery and humor. This book has it all and a bit of romance as well! There is no way I can do justice to this book in a short review but I'll try.

I laughed out loud so many times reading this book. I have read it again I enjoyed it so much. I highly recommend this book to those of you who enjoy light cozy mysteries and travel and humor.

A short summary is that the main character ends up on a seniors tour and while exploring Europe some unfortunate incidents happen to her tour members and she ends up getting involved in solving the crimes. During this she meets an Italian detective with whom she shares a mutual attraction. Lost luggage adds more humor to her situation (and frustration naturally).

Highly recommended!!! Can't wait until her new one this fall.Travel the world with Maddy Hunter - you'll love it.

Move over Evanovich, there's a new author in town. This book is terrific!

Emily Andrew accompanies her grandmother on a seniors tour of Switzerland. She expected a travel brochure vacation, but the fog never lifted and the food was nondescript. Iowans are fanatical about being on time, so much so that they are usually half an hour or more early. This about drives Emily crazy. She has lived in New York long enough to no longer have the compulsion to be so early.

Andy Simon, the tour escort, was a Senior who was always sweet talking the ladies. Then he is found dead. Emily agrees to be the tour escort in Andy's place.

Sexy Detective Etienne Miceli begins investigating Andy's death. He and Emily hit it off immediately. With Emily's suitcase missing, she ends up wearing her grandmother's clothes. Plus Emily always seems to end up swimming to save something important dropped into water. She is running out of clothes and watches.

Then a woman from the Rhode Island contingent on this tour falls to her death. Emily is convinced a murderer is among them. Who could it be? These are senior citizens. Could one of them be killing of the others?

This book was one of the best I have read for a long time. It was hilarious. The things that Emily had to endure and the way she describes and sees things is truly funny.

I highly recommend this book. I can't say the scenery was beautiful due to the fog, but she describes it so well that you can see it as she does. The characters are an absolute hoot. The romance between Etienne and Emily is tastefully described.

You won't be disappointed by this book. I can't wait to read the next book due out in August 2003.

This is the first book in the Passport to Peril Mysteries. This story is about the tour from hell to Switzerland, as taken by Emily and her grandmother. Did I mention that included on this trip is a group of Nana's friends....senior citizens from Iowa? Everything that can go wrong does, and Emily finds herself overboard swimming to catch up to a floating artifical limb in one scene. Overall, there are just too many hilarious scenes in this book to describe them all but they do not disappoint!

Secondary to the action (at least in my opinion) is the mystery of a fallen fellow traveler that, of course, Emily solves. I would compare this book to Janet Evanovich for humor and for the slapstick-type situations that both Stephanie Plum and Emily find themselves in.

As of this writing, the second book in the series, Top O the Morning, is due to be released in September of 2003. Enjoy!

I have read a lot of REALLY BAD cozies hoping and praying that they would be as entertaining and fun and enjoyable as the reviewers at this website say they are only to be disappointed on almost every occasion. This book, however, really IS a fun read. Don't go in expecting a heavy, dark, complicated and involved mystery - read Robert Crais for that. But for an enjoyable book that will have you laughing out loud and wanting for more - read this book. I couldn't read it right before bed because it was so funny it would wake me up instead of putting me to sleep! Others have given very apt descriptions so I won't go into all that. Let's just say this very hard to please mystery reader has found a new author to read.

If you haven't yet read Maddy Hunter's first mystery, ALPINE FOR YOU, you're in for a treat. It's one of those rare novels that actually makes you laugh out loud, and not just once but often and throughout. Emily Andrew, a woman in her late twenties with a flair for fashion and a penchant for trouble, has a good and generous heart and a wonderful sense of humor that allows her to deal with anything life throws her way. On a tour of Switzerland with a cast of quirky senior citizens from her hometown in Iowa, including her clever and spunky grandmother, Emily finds her wits put to the test. Disappearing luggage and diving into icy waters to rescue various personal items become the least of her concerns when a killer emerges in their midst. Working with Nana and devastatingly sexy police inspector Etienne Miceli, Emily is determined to help solve the murder. And if you enjoy ALPINE FOR YOU, you'll love joining Emily and her group of senior citizens in TOP O' THE MOURNIN' as they visit a haunted castle in Ireland where folks are literally being scared to death.

It's difficult not to compare the two -- Evanovich has a heroine who has bad luck with cars, Hunter has a heroine who has bad luck with water. The parallels go on and on -- both involve madcap comedy combined with mystery. Although I think Evanovich does it better, I still found myself laughing out loud at places in this book. They mystery wasn't very much of a mystery, but the location in Switzerland added to the appeal of the book, and her humor about tourists in Europe was pretty funny (taking photos in the fog, for example).

The plot involves a tour group of seniors from Iowa who are in Lucerne in the off-season. Our young heroine is with her grandmother, the youngest by far on this tour. There is a death of one of the tour group members -- a Lothario who has slept with half the middle aged and older women in town, and some of them are on this trip. A drop-dead sexy Swiss police detective is investigating this death (and others that follow), and of course are heroine's knees turn to jelly every time he walks in the room.

This is a "fun" book rather than great literature. I will read more books (this is the first of a proposed series) but will wait until they come out in paperback -- hence the four stars rather than the five I'd give Evanovich.

THIS WAS A GREAT BOOK. I JUST COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN.I LOVED THE WAY THEY TALKED ABOUT THE DIFFRET BUILDINGS IN THE TOWN. IT WAS A GREAT LIGHT MYSTERY READ. I WOULD RECOMMEND IT. I'M GOING TO GET THE REST OF THE SERIES.THIS IS ONE YOU JUST DON'T WANNA PUT DOWN ONCE YOU GET STARTED.THE STORY LINE JUST PULLS YOU IN. THE CARICTERS ARE WONDERFULL AND FUNNY.AND I LOVE THE TRIPS THEY TAKE. I JUST HAD TO GIVE IT 5 STARS FOR A GREAT FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES.

This book is loads of fun. Emily Andrews, a young woman escorting a group of senior citizens from Iowa (including her grandmother) on a tour of Switzerland, isn't quite prepared for the murderous turn the tour takes. She hasn't planned to be in charge of anything...and wouldn't be if the original escort hadn't died the first night the tour arrived in Switzerland, leaving her effectively holding the bag (that would be the bag with all the seniors' medications in it). Much hilarity ensues before the mystery is solved.

I had a great time reading this. It's easy and quick. Fluffy, even. So don't expect a serious mystery novel or you'll be sadly disappointed. A couple of reviewers have said that they were turned off by the portrayal of Switzerland in this book. If the characterizations here were to turn up in a serious novel, I'd agree with them. But slapstick--and make no mistake, that's what this is--has a different ethos. Exaggeration is the name of the game and Switzerland, Iowa, actors and senior citizens are all larger-than-life and twice as stereotyped.