Armed and Glamorous: A Crime of Fashion Mystery [Mass Market Paperback]

Ellen Byerrum (Author)

Book Description

Series: Crime of Fashion Mystery | Publication Date: July 1, 2008

Trench coats? hot or not?

The author of Grave Apparel proves you can solve mysteries without sacrificing style...

Unchallenged and unappreciated, fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian slips on her trench coat and high-heeled gumshoes to pursue a course in private investigation and a shot at a better job.

When a wealthy and erratic D.C. socialite is discovered quite dead outside the classroom, Lacey gets to test those sleuthing skills. Was the victim on her way to share a dangerous secret with Smithsonian? And what does it have to do with a missing Louis Vuitton vintage custom makeup case?

Lacey must mix style with substance to unravel these tangled threads before she, or one of her best friends, gets caught in the sights of a cold-blooded killer?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ellen Byerrum is a journalist in Washington, D.C., and a produced and published playwright. She holds a Virginia private investigator’s registration. A Colorado native, she lives in Virginia with her husband. Visit her Web site at www.ellenbyerrum.com.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Signet (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451224566
• ISBN-13: 978-0451224569
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ellen Byerrum writes the popular Crime of Fashion mysteries set in bustling Washington, D.C., The City That Fashion Forgot. The books feature style scribe Lacey Smithsonian, who wears vintage clothing and solves crimes with fashion clues. While she's always looking for a little respect and a better beat, Lacey examines and comments on style snafus in her Crimes of Fashion columns and Fashion Bites, included in the books.

Coming in February 2012, DEATH ON HEELS brings Lacey back to Sagebrush, Colorado, the scruffy hard-luck boom town where she earned her reporter's spurs. When an old boyfriend is accused of murder, she grabs her cowboy boots and heads West to prove he's innocent in the death of three women, all left barefoot on lonely country roads. The trip also tests whether Lacey has resolved her past romantic feelings.

SHOT THROUGH VELVET(February 2011) takes Lacey to a velvet factory in southern Virginia on its last day of operation where she finds a blue corpse in a vat of dye.

Ellen's series started with KILLER HAIR (2003), followed by DESIGNER KNOCKOFF (2004), HOSTILE MAKEOVER (2005), RAIDERS OF THE LOST CORSET (2006), GRAVE APPAREL (2007), AND ARMED AND GLAMOROUS (2008).

Two of Ellen's books, KILLER HAIR and HOSTILE MAKEOVER, were filmed as Crime of Fashion TV movies and aired on the Lifetime Movie Network in June and July 2009. They are available for download on Amazon.

While researching vintage fashions for her mysteries books, Ellen has collected her own assortment of dresses and suits from the 1940s, but laments her lack of closet space. Ellen has worked in Washington as a reporter, and she holds a private investigator's registration in Virginia. She also writes plays under the pen name "Eliot Byerrum." A CHRISTMAS CACTUS and GUMSHOE RENDEZVOUS are published by and available from Samuel French Inc.

You can find more about Ellen and her books on her website at http://www.ellenbyerrum.com/. Her blog is located at http://ellenbyerrum.livejournal.com. You can also follow Ellen on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EllenByerrum and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/EllenByerrum. Thanks for visiting.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love Lacey. Even when she's Armed and Dangerous--I mean Glamorous., July 21, 2008

By 

Jay (Pittsburgh PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Armed and Glamorous: A Crime of Fashion Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

As Chekhov might have said, don't put Lacey Smithsonian in the opening of your story unless you're planning for a murder to happen. Well, Armed and Glamorous not only provides us and Lacey a murder-slash-robbery, its mise en scene is a Northern Virginia academy for private investigators whose motto is NO LOADED WEAPONS IN THE CLASSROOM.

Mixed in with the crimes, Byerrum provides a frothy frappe of fashionista fun. In addition to Lacey's usual sidekicks (blonde attorney Brooke, starlicious Stella, and Damon Newhouse, who's made paranoia profitable), we are reintroduced to ex-KGB spy Gregor Kepelov and New Orleans psychic Marie Largesse, and meet a classroomful of private investigator wannabees and their teacher.

After society divorcee Cecily Ashton is murdered-slash-robbed, Lacey, Brooke, and Stella take to the shooting range, and form a no-boys-allowed club, the PCC (sorry, you'll have to read the book for translation of all acronyms). Speaking of acronyms, there are a couple of other new Inside the Beltway (ITB) pearls of acronymous fun waiting to be discovered: PDA (no, not that PDA) and PWIP.

Getting more serious, Armed & Dangerous has a chapter later in the book which explicates Lacey's internal conflict over being a fashion reporter as well as it has ever been stated. Lacey Smithsonian doesn't really want to be a fashion reporter, but because she is, murder (with a little help from Our Lady of Fortuitous Coincidence) seems to find her, not only when she's investigating fashion stories, but also, as we find out in Armed & Glamorous, when she's engaged in extracurricular activities. Fashion is how Lacey understands a lot of the world around her. She parses Hansen the photographer, to name one character, by means of a thorough analysis of his fashion choices: "His fashion accessories consisted of half a dozen press passes to government buildings, including one for Congress and one for the White House." We understand Hansen's psyche as well as we might were a psychoanalyst to psychoanalyze: "If you loved Hansen, it wasn't for his wardrobe. It was for the inner Hansen." And in so doing, we come away with an understanding of what makes Lacey tick.

On the food front, Stella and Nigel create the new drink sensation, the Washington Wintry Mix. And Felicity contributes to the baking arts with an almond cake with lemon filling and glaze, topped with whipped cream.

Oh, and before I forget (Department of Local Color): One out of every six people in DC is a spy.

I'm not going to give away the ending. I HATE spoilers. Let's just say Armed & Glamorous ends on a suitably Chekhovian note.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another good fun read, July 12, 2008

By 

Arkay (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Armed and Glamorous: A Crime of Fashion Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

I thought "Raiders of the lost corset" and "Grave apparel" were good but Miss Byerrum has come up with another winner.

Lacey Smithsonian is taking a PI course with an acquaintance of her very personal PI - Vic Donovan and at the lunch break on the first day, a dead woman's body is discovered in the car park, a woman who Lacey interviewed just days before.

Vic is out of town so it is up to Lacey and her girl pal's Brooke and Stella to sort out the fashion clues.

Vic arrives back just in time to ride to the rescue together with former
nemesis from Raiders of the lost corset Nigel Griffen and Gregor Kepelov.

My one complaint, is that I will have to wait another year for the next book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Can't get into, September 19, 2011

By 

kitkat824 "kitkat824" (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Armed and Glamorous: A Crime of Fashion Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

I have to agree with Frantic. This is the first book I have tried to read by this author. I really wanted to like it, but honestly I could not make it to 100 pages. It as taken me 4 days to get that far, normally I would have read a couple books in that time. I am going to give other books in this series a try.
I did not believe the character relationship between Stella, Lacey and Brooke, odd and almost weird. Not real believable.
I chose this book as it was on a list of books/authors like "Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum Series" This book IS NOTHING AT ALL like JE style books. NOTHING. I barely cracked a smile. JE makes me laugh out loud. But I will try other one's and give it another try.