11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and Quirky Characters, July 18, 2000
This review is from: Dating Can be Deadly (Mass Market Paperback)
After 22 years of marriage and nearly 9 years of being divorced, Jimi Plain's family has decided she needs to start dating, and they give her a gift certificate to "The New You" dating service. Jimi is less than thrilled, as she's content with her life as it is, but she don't want to hurt her grandmother's and daughters' feelings, so she finally goes to The New You to tape her "Before" video. Once there, Jimi discovers her counselor's dead body, and Jimi soon learns that just about everyone had a motive for killing the woman.
The only drawback I had was the way Jimi interrogated all the suspects. At times it felt like a scene from "Dragnet", with Jimi constantly asking people leading questions, just as though she were a police officer. And what's more, the characters answered her questions without hesitation. This didn't seem believeable to me.
There are lots of fun and quirkly characters in DATING CAN BE DEADLY. I enjoyed becoming involved with Jimi and her family, and I look forward to further books in this series.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Better To Go On A Blind Date, June 20, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Dating Can be Deadly (Mass Market Paperback)
Jimi Plain, who's a writer for hire, brochures, pamplets, etc, received a Christmas gift from her two daughters & Grandma.
After 14 years of marriage and 8 as a non-dating divorcee, it's not the kind she wished for.
A subscription to the the New You Center for Dating.
Things start out bad when on arriving at the Center for her videotaped interview, she finds her counselor, Steffi Hargitay, dead, her head bashed in sitting at her desk.
Jimi's cousin, the gorgeous cop, Danny Delvecchio is investigating and Jimi decides since she can come and go at the center at will, she probably should help.
There are certainly enough suspects.
Steve Stivik, owner and manager was unconcerned about the murder at his business, he seemed more interested in a notebook that was missing than her death.
The other employee's: Diane - whom Steffi didn't like and was always making nasty comments too. Gary, who she had been dating and then dumped. Irene - an older woman that Steffi was trying to get fired, because she thought Irene was too old to work there.
The other memebers of Jimi's group:
Delia Grant , travel agent who went to high school with Jimi and thinks she's living in "South Pacific", only wearing mumu's and sarongs with a big flower in her hair. It probably wouldn't be so bad, if she didn't always wear some type of shirt under her sarong.
Delia's friend Barbara Merchant, a very shy unattractive woman who is also a travel agent. Neither liked Steffi.
Bert Chumley - an elderly man who claimed to have had a date with Steffi.
Carl Cutler - restaurant owner, who told Jimi that he knew Steffi in high school and she had been the only person who had been nice to him. He had been thrilled to find her working at the center and was upset over her death.
Or maybe:
Dr. Ben. Barrows - dermatologist, who had signed up at the center, but quit when Steffi tried to get him to donate his services to the Center. He didn't believe dermatologist's should do plastic surgery without being properly trained, but Steffi wouldn't quit asking him to do it for their clients.
Is it one of them, or someone else? Did it have to do with Steffi's nasty tongue and bad attitude towards everyone, or did it have something to do with the business. She was heard to argue with the owner Steve, insisting he owed her something.
Was she blackmailing someone? What was in the notebook that she had before she died and which Steve is desperate to find.
Then there's another murder. That cuts down on the suspects, but when there is a third murder, Jimi really begins to worry that every one might be in danger and she has to find the killer before there's no one left for her to date at the center.
To make matters worse, Lucy - Jimi's dog has fallen in love with Barney the doberman down the street. Jimi spends half her time chasing down the dog, who digs under the fence, ruining the flowers and digging up the bricks on the sidewalk outside Barney's owner, the aforemention, Dr. Ben Barrow's house.
Dr. Ben isn't too pleased to with either Lucy or Jimi. But that couldn't be the reason Jimi's car is blown up, could it?
Highlights:
Jimi is a very funny character. You really like her and her family, Her two daughters, Chloe & Shannon, her grandmother and her cousin, Det. Danny.
Grandma setting Jimi up on a blind date with the butcher's son. It might help them get cheaper meat. And then trying to set Danny up with Delia Grant.
Good mystery. In both this book and her previoius book - "Divorce Can Be Murder." the mystery starts right away. Steffi's dead by page 10. I didn't guess the killer or why they were killing.
Unlike a lot of mysteries you get to know the additional characters, they're not just names you're trying to remember every time they show up.
Just a very nice read.
Lowlights:
This book was published in 1999 and it looks like it's the last of the series. The author Victoria Pade is a very popular & prolific writer in the Harlequin Romances. I went to Harlequin on-line, because they have author biography's and in Victoria Pade's it shows she wrote 2 mystery's. So it looks like "Divorce Can Be Murder." and "Dating Can Be Deadly." may be all we're going to get.
This is really too bad, because both of these books are wonderful and I will be very sorry if there aren't any more, but 5 years is a long time between books.
Even with only two books it's better to read this small series than slog through 7 or 8 books in a lesser series.
VICTORIA PADE PLEASE WRITE ANOTHER ONE.
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