Customer Reviews

The Brush-Off: A Hair-raising Mystery

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Reyn Marten Sawyer owns a small hair salon attached to her house. Her mentor and friend Ricardo, who owns a large chain of salons, is found dead in his salon - stabbed with one of her hairbrushes!

Detective Jackson Scythe is very good looking. He calls and requests Reyn to come over to identify the body. Apparently she was the last person Ricardo called before dying. So she is at the top of his suspect list.

She begins investigating to uncover Ricardo's murderer and to get her life back. She and her best friend and sleuthing partner Trudy Trujillo look for clues. Some of their methods are creative. They are quite surprised when they find that includes talking to drag queens as well as breaking and entering. Ricardo's customers were high society ladies, but getting his list of clients does not prove easy. They have to visit a very strange psychic for help.

With her contacts in the business, Reyn is able to uncover quite a bit of information. Unfortunately Detective Scythe is dogging her every move.

Along the way, Reyn and Trudy find out a lot of hidden information about Ricardo's life, but they aren't sure if it will help them solve his murder.

Reyn ends up putting herself and others in danger. Scythe has his hands full trying to keep her safe. Reyn keeps trying to get out from under his care. This makes for a lot of trouble, but it is fun for the reader.

This is a delightful, funny mystery. Many times I found myself laughing outloud. Ms. Bradley has created a great set of characters. Reyn and Detective Scythe have lots of sexual tension. Trudy, her husband and his mother add a lot of laughs to this book. Trudy and Reyn get themselves in many interesting situations. The San Antonio setting is great, too.

I highly recommend this book! I can't wait to read the next book.

I've been trying to find new authors and picked this book on a whim, and I never regretted it. It is almost slap stick comedy at times, but over all it is a fun book. The predicaments the heroine gets herself into are priceless and seem to shadow Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. At the end of the book, you crave to know if Reyn and the hunky cop ever get together. The surprising little mini-twist are refreshing and the book keeps you guessing until the end. I will definitely be reading more of Laura Badley.

She came from a small Texas town to San Antonio to make something of herself and she talked Ricardo, the famous Beauty Salon King into giving her a job. He was her mentor and they became friends and they still had a good relationship after she left him to go solo. She runs her own salon in the historical house she restored to its former glory. After a while passes, Ricardo comes into Reyn Marten Sawyer's Salon to borrow a very sharp hair brush that he needs for a special customer.

That night he calls Reyn waking her up. She thinks his mind is a bit muddled from drink because he isn't making any sense. The next day she gets another phone call, this time from the police, telling her that Ricardo is dead and they need her to identify the body. She goes over to his home and sees that the murder weapon was the brush he borrowed from her. That and the fact that he left her his business make her a suspect in the eyes of the adorable Detective Jacks Scythe. Reyn seeks the perpetrator much to the horror and dismay of Detective Scythe.

This is the first "Hair-Raising Mystery" and it is charming, funny and exciting as Reyn runs over anyone who gets in her way once she makes up her mind on a course of action. Laura Bradley has a refreshing writing style that uses humor to diffuse some tension. As much as she tries to deny it, the heroine is very interested in the sexy detective making THE BRUSH-OFF of interest to fans of romantic mysteries.

Harriet Klausner

I'm not sure why the new "in" profession for amateur sleuths seems to be hairdressing. It works for Bubbles Yablonsky because she also works for her town's newspaper as a reporter. It doesn't work in this new series.

The mystery itself wasn't too bad (though it was a bit confusing with all the characters that kept getting tossed in as the story went along), but the characters were awful. The author seemed to be going for the madcap humor of Stephanie Plum, but she fell far short of her goal. Reyn wasn't all that likeable, let alone funny. We found out very little about her in this book, other than the fact that she has three Labs, wears cheap underwear, and has a bad haircut. And Trudy has got to be the most annoying sidekick ever in the history of amateur sleuth series.

The editing was also really poor. There were so many spelling and grammatical errors that I lost count of them about halfway through the book. And the cute little pet names for Scythe (Detective Delicious, Policeman Perfect, Lieutenant Lucscious) were just nauseating after awhile.

While not as bad as Nancy J. Cohen's "Bad Hair Day" mysteries, I don't see this hairdressing sleuth staying on my reading list very long.

The Brush-Off and Sprayed Stiff, the second of the Hair-raising mysteries, are screamingly funny. "Cozies" are becoming increasingly popular, but they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are serious, these are definitely not.

Having an amateur sleuth who is a hairstylist works really well for Bradley for a number of reasons: hair stylists interact with people from all walks of life, the "salon culture" is a fun world to draw, and stylists have a fair amount of flexibility as they can often work in other people's homes or on unusual schedules. I am really hoping that Bradley writes more about these engaging characters and their unusual exploits.

Lots of people I see are comparing these to Evanovich...some negatively. While I do love Stephanie Plum, I think it's harsh to say that anyone who's writing humorous amateur sleuth fiction is imitating Evanovich. Reyn is very, very different from Stephanie Plum and deserves to be evaluated on her own instead of in comparison.

This book has humor and is a very clever mystery. The characters are well defined and unique. I caught myself laughing out loud at them and I became as concerned about them as I did the main character. I enjoyed this first book and look forward to her next one. If you like a good mystery with interesting, funny characters and situations, you will like this one.

This book was cute. It won't win any literary awards, but is was entertaining in a Janet Evanovich kind of way. I would compare the main character Reyn Marten Sawyer with Stephanie Plum, although I think Reyn is a little smarter and not as inept. She's also not as funny, either. One note: this was my first time reading an e-book, and there were many grammatical and spelling errors. If your interested in reading this book, I would suggest the paperpack edition.

Today's crop of mystery writers seem to be trying to emulate Janet Evanovich. Thus far, only one of the authors I read has come close (Donna Andrews). The formula is pretty basic: a protagonist who has one quirky best friend, another who's gay/lesbian/transsexual, and a smart/hunky cop or dumb/fat cop who may or may not suspect the protagonist of a crime. These protagonists generally have ordinary lives until they're compelled to investigate a murder. While the formula works in many cases, it *is* becoming tiresome. This novel, first in a series, forces the humor a bit but is otherwise an entertaining read. Besides, I must be tolerant of the formula because I seem to keep reading it! Enjoy!

I very seldom do not finish a book...especially a mystery...however, I decided this was one to 'pass on to the thrift store'!
I really did not care what happened...even after reading several chapters.

After reading poor reviews, I decided to read it anyway. Boy, am I glad I did! I love this series and can't wait for the next one!