Customer Reviews

Calamity Jayne (Tressa Jayne Turner Mysteries, Book 1)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A small-town underachiever with two dead-end jobs, a lust-hate relationship with her brother's gorgeous best friend "Ranger Rick," and a reputation for living up to her hated nickname, Calamity Jayne stumbles into a murder mystery -- and a way to prove to everyone, especially herself, that she's more than just a walking, talking dumb blonde joke. Calamity's wise cracks kept me laughing and the story's mystery kept me guessing 'til the very last page.

Terrific, fun debut, Ms. Bacus! I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!

Highly recommended.

What an enjoyable book! The writer's style makes for a very quick read and keeps you laughing all the way. I did not guess the ending and that is very unusual for me. Can't wait for Calamity Jane Rides Again!

This wonderful first novel by Kathleen Bacus is an amazingly funny, yet grippingly suspenseful, debut. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments and peppered with truly poignant observations from the underachieving "Calamity" on her average-Jayne life, it doesn't take long for readers to start rooting for this plucky heroine to receive her due. Determined to win the respect of the townspeople who have good-naturedly mocked her all of her life, our "dumb blonde" heroine Tessa Jayne finally comes to realize it isn't R-E-S-P-E-C-T that she needs, but SELF-respect. While watching her discover that fact, you root for her and cheer her on as she gets closer to solving the case no one in town believes is a case.

I loved this book, and I'm looking forward to Calamity Jayne's further adventures. What a fun, delightful read.

The best thing about this book is that it does have funny moments and the plot is a good idea. HOWEVER, oh my gawd! The heroine's stupidity (supposed to be charming), got VERY old and went on way too long. Not funny. I got bored with all the Lucille-Ball-badly-done antics, gave up about halfway through and skipped to the end, something i've only done one other time in my life. I don't think i missed a thing by skipping half the book.

Anyone who lives in or near Granville, Iowa knows that the centerfold for Murphy's Law is Tressa "Calamity" Jayne Turner, who seems to land in the fire time after time. However, this time Calamity Jayne manages to make even Murphy look like an optimist with her latest bonehead blunder. Tired after working the late shift at Bargain City, Tressa takes a car that looks like hers, but is not hers. On the drive home on a remote road she has a flat. She opens the trunk to pull out the spare only to find the corpse of the town's drug-smuggling attorney and an envelope containing plenty of cash.

Stunned Jane runs off to find Ranger Rick, but by the time they return to where she left the vehicle, the car with of course its body and loot is gone. Neither Rick nor anyone else believes Jane's story; that is no one except the killer who believes she concocted a story to abscond with the money and whoever has the cash. The murderer wants his loot returned immediately to him or there will be one less dumb blond living in Iowa.

CALAMITY JANE is an amusing chick lit investigative tale with the emphasis on the heroine as the poster-child for dumb blond jokes. The dialogue between Rick and Jane is often amusing especially when she tries to persuade him that she is telling him the truth while he figures she is just doing one more stupid thing. Kathleen Bacus provides a lighthearted romp that stars simply a likable bud dumb blond.

Harriet Klausner

Tressa Jayne Turner just cannot get a break. Known as an accident waiting to happen, she's had difficulty holding down a job and getting any kind of respect. She blames her brother's best friend, "Ranger" Rick Townsend for her sorry reputation, as he bears witness to many of these unfortunate incidents. All Tressa wants is for someone, even just her family, to believe in her for a change instead of running for cover.

When she comes across a dead body of a prominent town citizen, Tressa knows this is more serious than any other situation she's ever been in. But the local police don't give her explanation much credit, so it's up to her to solve a murder in a small town. And maybe, with the help of the bane of her existence, Ranger Rick, she might actually succeed. The dead bodies start piling up, and before long Tressa is up to her eyeballs in guns, tattooed hitmen, geriatric partners-in-crime, and the irritating yet irresistible ranger who gives her libido a jolt whenever he's near. The problem is that her life is in danger, so who can she trust?

I really enjoyed this book, except for one thing: every once in awhile I'd swear I was in the middle of a Stephanie Plum book. The details were too close in similarity for me to ignore, and I would be unpleasantly jarred out of the plot during one of those moments, confused as to which book I was actually reading. I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and believe she has never read the Evanovich series, and therefore had no clue that some of the phrases, gestures, and character descriptions fit almost to an exact "T". I look forward to book 2 in the series and hope the similarities aren't as glaringly obvious. Kathleen Bacus has a way with words and I enjoyed her writing immensely.

I almost didn't make it past page 50. The opening is slow. Too much time is spent in C.J.'s head going over unimportant details. And I found Tressa's 'voice' kind of annoying rather than funny. Many of the jokes fell flat for me. Also her name isn't Calamity Jane, it's Tressa. That threw me the entire book. I kept getting confused as both names are used interchangeably in dialogue.

This is also true with other characters, and when the killer is finally revealed, I had no idea who he was because there were so many different names floating around.

Once the plot picked up I got into the book and enjoyed it. It was a fun, flirty read. I enjoyed the banter with Rick, and loved Manny, Joe, and Hannah. To me this books comes off as something between the Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels (not vampires thought) and Stephanie Plum. Now that I think about it, there area a lot of similarities to Stephanie Plum.

Best of all, this is a romance novel with sexual tension but without pages and pages of descriptive sex. Yeah! I don't see those very often any more.

I'd recommend Calamity Jane as a summer beach read.

A delightful mystery that involves madcap adventure and small town life. My favorite part of this book was a lot of the references to the Iowa town and its goings-on (since I'm from the same area as the author.)

If you love a light mystery, this is a quick read with plenty of comical characters and witty descriptions. There were several pages that I was laughing out loud at the things Calamity was thinking. I am looking forward to the next misadventure of Calamity.

This is a fantastic, incredibly funny book - I absolutely recommend it! The dialogue between Tressa "Calamity" Jayne Turner and her childhood nemisis, Ranger Rick Townsend is hilarious and their chemistry is irresistable. I can't wait for the next book in this series.

If you are a Janet Evanovich fan, you will love this book. Calamity Jayne is a lot like Evanovich's first couple of books in the Plum series in that it can move a little slow, but the characters, humor, and plot are there! I have no doubt that every book Kathleen Bacus writes in this series will get better and better! I can't wait for her new book this summer!