Customer Reviews

Dead Ex

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't say enough good things about this book. Where so many mysteries pander to the mundane or brutal, Kozak's latest excels in its intelligence, wit and charm. It's not just the mystery that's compelling - it's the characters like unique Fredreeq, drunken Joey and Wollie, the protagonist who thinks in greeting card captions, who set this book apart. Plus, there is an underlying theme of Greek classical literature. Yes, it's also peeks into the world of soap operas and Hollywood and that would be enough. But this has Kozak's sparkling dialogue and hysterical asides. It's funny. It's sexy. It's smart.

There are so many awful mysteries written these days. This is not one of them. That's why Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review. Enjoy!

I liked the behind the scenes looks at the world of soaps, but I found my attention wandering before the end of the book. I enjoyed the previous Wollie books more than this one. I really don't care for the relationship between Wollie and Simon and am hoping that Doc makes a surprise return for the next book.

The day after Christmas, terminally ill soap opera producer David Zetrakis is found murdered in his Los Angeles mansion. That actually means something to greeting card designer Wollie Shelley since she dated him for a few months. But the sense of loss she feels is nothing compared to that of her friend Joey Rafferty who had stayed friendly with David after her own breakup with the man. In fact, she was at his house just before he died.

And that's why the police zero in on Joey as their prime suspect. When they begin questioning her, they quickly realize she is hiding something. But what? As Joey begins to act more and more strangely, Wollie realizes she is going to need to step in to solve the crime.

Fortunately, Wollie has just been handed the perfect platform. She's been asked to become the dating correspondent on SoapDirt. And her first dates are with the men of David's soap, At the End of the Day. Unfortunately, this new job doesn't sit when with Wollie's boyfriend, FBI agent Simon. But he's started acting strangely himself. Beside, Wollie has enough to figure out. Why would someone shoot a man about to die anyway? Did one of Wollie's new men commit the crime? And what is Joey hiding?

As with the first two books, this is a fun mystery. Wollie narrates the events with just the right dose of sarcasm when needed. And who doesn't need it when dealing with soap opera stars? The characters, both returning and new, leap off the page. The plot dragged some in the middle, however. And the denouncement seemed rushed to me. The ending itself was very suspenseful and I was turning pages as fast as I could. And the dating tied in better with the overall mystery then it did in the last book.

The book is fun and well worth reading for any of Wollie's many fans.

Greeting card designer and serial dater Wollie Shelley returns in Harley Jane Kozak's delightful third novel, DEAD EX. When Wollie's ex-boyfriend, a terminally-ill soap opera producer, is murdered, her best friend (who also dated him) is the prime suspect. Wollie must jump headfirst into the shark-infested waters of Hollywood to find out what really happened and clear her friend's name. DEAD EX is a charming book with a well-done mystery and plenty of fun characters.

This book is the third in the series and by far my favorite! It's very well written and has good witty humor, it's an easy read tkat keeps you thinking. I hope Kozak doesn't quit writing!

This is the third book in the series featuring Wollstonecraft ("Wollie") Shelley. I suggest reading them in order to get the full flavor of Wollie's wacky personality.

Wollie is a greeting card designer, a mural painter - and a very minor TV personality who appears on cheesy low-budget productions. She seems to specialize in dating on camera.

This time out Wollie gets hired as a dating correspondent in connection with a promotion for a soap opera. She's going to date three guys from a series called At the End of the Day, and then gossip about the guys on a program called SoapDirt.

One of the actors also hires her to paint a mural inspired by ancient Greece. The Iliad reminds Wollie of LA with its murders, fighting, illicit affairs, revenge and gossip. This makes for some amusing philosophizing, Wollie-style.

Meanwhile a rich and successful soap opera producer has been shot. It may have been a case of assisted suicide (he had cancer). But when the cops call it murder, Wollie's best friend Joey becomes suspect number one. After all, she inherits his Klimt. And when Joey's husband dies mysteriously, the cops have two possible murders to pin on Joey.

Naturally Wollie tries to rescue her friend, and her efforts result in a zany plot thickly peopled with potential murderers. Fortuitously her FBI agent boyfriend is busy with an assignment at this time, and doesn't get in the way.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as Dating Dead Men and Dating Is Murder. Overall it isn't quite as funny. And I was sorry to see Kozak ridiculing AA, which is such an admirable outfit. I sensed a certain desperation for a laugh here. Nonetheless, I'll be ordering A Date You Can't Refuse. I'm addicted to Wollie.

This book has a lot going for it. It's humorous, but it's also a good mystery. Lots of suspects with plausible motives.

Wally is an appealing heroine who gets into awkward situations and can joke about them. (Some of her comments are laugh-out-loud funny.) She's intelligent and dogged. She has a complicated love life - her new boyfriend is a federal agent. An unsolved murder keeps interfering with her love life.

As the mystery unfolds, you learn interesting, gossipy details about how soap operas are made. The solution to the mystery is a surprise, but it makes sense - it doesn't come out of left field.

I'd give it four and a half stars if I could.

Wollie, an artist/greeting card designer and part-time Soap Dish dating consultant, finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation involving the death of her ex-lover (David Zetrakus), of which her very best friend, Joey, is quickly becoming the prime suspect. It would appear that Joey had the means (she's a gun toting hot head), the motive (she will inherit a very valuable painting and David fired her 10-years-ago under some very mysterious circumstances), and the opportunity (she was with David shortly before his death). Wollie finds herself in a bit of a mess while trying to prevent her friend's looming arrest, trying to navigate a very unusual relationship with her boyfriend, a sexy FBI Agent Simon (who is full of secrets and on a special mission which means she has to move out of his swank penthouse), purchase comics for her schizophrenic brother, PB (who is due to be released from an institution any day), paint a mural of the Greek Gods depicted in The Iliad and maintain a professional dating career, all while having her hair dyed carrot orange and finding out if Joey's husband Elliott's death was related. I simply loved "Dead Ex"! Between the zany conversations and Wollie's zany adventures, I was laughing out loud. I even went out and purchased the next one just to see what ever happened to Wollie, her friends and Simon. I can't wait to read it.

DEAD EX by Harley Jane Kozak

Doubleday 2007


In DEAD EX, Harley Jane Kozak has managed to write a complex, funny, poignant and hardboiled story all in one. Some might protest at the use of the word "hardboiled" but Kozak includes several key elements of that genre - the journey through a city's high and low life and the first person narrator whose sad history is highlighted with glints of hope.

In fact, I often found myself thinking as I read this intelligent book that this is what Raymond Chandler would sound like if he had been a woman. Sure, women can write Chandler-style narratives and do them very well, thank you very much. But those stories are always rooted firmly in a man's world for the most part, even when the protagonist is a woman. Kozak writes unabashedly from the point of view of a woman, scraped and bruised a bit by life's blows, but whose face is always turned toward the sun. The writing is graceful, ironic and smart--don't blink or you'll miss a spot-on metaphor or heart-piercing observation.

In this third book in a series, greeting card designer and muralist Wollie Shelley learns that an old friend, soap opera producer David Zetrakis, has died - not of the cancer that would have felled him in short order but by a gunshot to the head. Was it murder or assisted suicide? And why is Wollie's best friend Joey Rafferty (David's ex-lover) looking and acting so danged guilty?

Wollie's faith in her friend's innocence sends her on a search for the real murderer as well as the reason for Joey's obfuscations. Along the way, Wollie deals with suspicions over her lover Simon's mysterious shenanigans (is he really undercover for the FBI or just...under covers with another woman?), employment woes (as she stumbles through a freelance job as "dating correspondent" for the weekly gossip show SoapDirt), artistic endeavors (as she prepares to paint a mural of epic proportions for a venerable soap star) and family challenges (as she prepares to move her mentally-ill brother to a halfway house with the help of her Uncle Theo who has a penchant for collecting...Greeks. As in illegal alien Greeks).

This is where Kozak's skill reaches for and often attains perfection. With casual grace, she seeds her story with an enormous cast of colorful characters, odd-seeming incidents and even apt references to Greek mythology and The Iliad. At first, it all appears random and unrelated--until she ties up every loose end in a fantastic bow.

Chekov supposedly proposed this simple rule of dramatic composition--if there's a gun in Act One, it must go off by Act Four. Kozak has a couple dozen guns strewn around in Act One and fires them all off magnificently by Act Four, raising this clever, funny, quixotic and sweet novel several notches above the now-standard mystery novel packed with oddball characters and quirky-narrator.

An outstanding book--highly recommended.

Wollie Shelley's ex has just been murdered. David Zetrakis was a "hyphenate" --- a soap opera actor-director-producer who had been fatally ill with cancer. Now someone has shot him. Wollie is a bit of a hyphenate herself: a mural painter-greeting card entrepreneur-amateur detective who is temporarily living with her FBI boyfriend, Simon.

At a cocktail party, Wollie's mural starring two frogs is unveiled to great acclaim. An odd elderly man named Sheffo hires her on the spot to paint Greek gods on his fence. At the same party, one of Wollie's best friends, Joey, accuses her husband of cheating on her. Then she makes cryptic remarks about David's murder before she passes out.

Wollie and her other best friend, Fredreeq, haul Joey to Simon's. Unfortunately, the media is very focused on Joey's relationship with David, calling him her boyfriend and insinuating he had something to do with her recent marital problems. Wollie fears that the police are headed down the same path of suspicion, with Joey as the main suspect for David's murder.

Jen Kim, producer of a program about soap operas called "SoapDirt," wants to hire Wollie to date the hottest stars on daytime TV and then report back on her show. Wollie is reluctant until she hears she will make a thousand bucks an episode, five episodes a week. Wollie needs the money --- particularly to help her brother, who happens to be a schizophrenic, get into an excellent halfway house --- so she very reluctantly agrees to be the "dating correspondent" for "SoapDirt."

While Wollie begins dating soap opera stars, Simon starts hinting --- well, actually, he tells her outright --- that she should find a new place to live. Supposedly, the reason has to do with his job. But Wollie wonders about his motives, even though he appears to be quite smitten with her even after she returns home from a makeover with irreversible orange Ronald McDonald hair. Wollie speculates about Simon's gorgeous young housekeeper, the one with the major Attitude. Is she somehow part of Simon's work, the part he can never discuss with Wollie? She can only hope.

Meanwhile, all signs point to Joey --- who had motive, means and opportunity galore --- as the murderer. But Wollie knows her friend is innocent. She must locate the real killer before the police find Joey, but Wollie's life has gotten complicated. Essentially homeless, she's kissing soap opera stars she's never met while being filmed for the show and (trying to) read THE ILIAD as research for her fence project, along with helping Joey avoid the authorities. But things turn even more ominous and complex when another crime takes place.

I recently raved about the first two books in this series to friends; DEAD EX is another winner with its irresistible good spirits and humor. Wollie never takes herself too seriously. She has an endearing air of innocence and yearning not often found in mystery series sleuths. Harley Jane Kozak is an actress you might remember from a number of TV shows and films, including "Santa Barbara" and Parenthood. Kozak is just as entertaining spinning a riveting mystery story, and her insider take on Hollywood is irreverent and enjoyable.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)