Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Book 5) [Hardcover]

Charlaine Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

Whats the world coming to when you cant relax with a glass of ice-cold beverage in your own backyard without a body falling from the sky into your garden? Part-time librarian and amateur investigator Roe Teagarden has good reason to ask herself this question when the remains of one of the Lawrenceton, Georgia police departments finest catapults into her flower bed. The mystery deepens as two federal agents arrive to investigate the murder. Its only when Madeleine the cat provides a clue that Roe begins to realize that using her yard as a temporary landfill may have been no accident and that Roe herself could be in terrible danger.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This uninspired addition to the Aurora Teagarden series (The Julius House, etc.) opens memorably with Lawrenceton, Ga.'s premiere librarian adjusting her lawn chair and observing Angel Youngblood, her bodyguard and all-around helper, cut the grass. From a plane that has been circling overhead drops the recently dead body of Detective Sergeant Jack Burns, Aurora's local law-enforcement nemesis. Aurora, or Roe as her friends call her, sets out to find out who killed him and why her garden was targeted for the corpse. As she conducts her unorthodox search, she has the nagging thought that perhaps the death has something to do with Angel or her husband, Shelby, or perhaps with her own husband, Martin, and his mysterious and dangerous past. She is not reassured when the FBI is called in, nor when several other murders are committed. In between visiting crime scenes and attending company banquets (the one-dimensional Martin is a bigshot exec), Roe also deals with the post-honeymoon letdown of her two-year-old marriage and ponders the strangely intimate relationship she has developed with her bodyguards. True Teagarden enthusiasts may feel rewarded by this latest episode, but Harris is a bit too down to earth this time out--the suspense barely cranks up before the solution descends with a thud not unlike that of Jack Burns's corpse.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Usually outspoken and witty, Aurora Teagarden is nearly struck dumb when a body falls from a circling plane and lands in her backyard, barely missing her bodyguard and buddy, Angel. The body belongs to a local policeman--no great friend--but strange events follow: government agents appear; someone clobbers Angel's husband; and a co-worker at the library is murdered after a showdown with Aurora. In her likable, indomitable fashion, Aurora sleuths in self-defense. Infectious prose, engaging characters, crafty plotting; recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 267 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786209852
• ISBN-13: 978-0786209859
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,277,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charlaine Harris (born November 25, 1951 in Tunica, Mississippi) is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over twenty years. She was raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she wrote plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She began to write books a few years later.
After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris launched a lighthearted series "starring" Georgia librarian Aurora Teagarden, with Real Murders, a Best Novel nominee for the 1990 Agatha Awards. Harris wrote eight Aurora titles. In 1996, she released the first of the much darker Shakespeare mysteries, featuring the amateur sleuth Lily Bard, a karate student who makes her living cleaning houses. Shakespeare's Counselor, the fifth--and last-- was printed in fall 2001.
After Shakespeare, Harris created The Sookie Stackhouse urban fantasy series about a telepathic waitress who works in a bar in the fictional Northern Louisiana town of Bon Temps. The first of these, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. Each book follows Sookie as she tries to solve mysteries involving vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. The series, which now numbers nine titles, has been released worldwide.
Sookie Stackhouse proved to be so popular that Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under, announced he would undertake the production of a new show for HBO based upon the books. He wrote and directed the pilot episode for that series, True Blood, which premiered in September of 2008. It was an instant success and was quickly picked up for a second season.
In October 2005, Harris's new mystery series about a young woman named Harper Connelly debuted with the release of Grave Sight. Harper has the ability to determine the cause of death of any body. There are now three Harper titles (GRAVE SIGHT, GRAVE SURPRISE, AN ICE COLD GRAVE) with a 4th (GRAVE SECRET) to be released in 2009.
Harris has also co-edited three very popular anthologies with her friend Toni L.P. Kelner. The anthologies feature stories with an element of the supernatural, and the submissions come from a rare mixture of mystery and urban fantasy writers.
Professionally, Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. Personally, Harris is married and the mother of three. She lives in a small town in Southern Arkansas and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If the Shoe Fits..., May 7, 2003

By 

Silmarwen (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Book 5) (Hardcover)

Aurora "Roe" Teagarden had just finished wrestling her lounge chair into a comfortable position when the body of her old nemesis, Detective Jack Burns, landed with a thud in her front yard. Everyone in town knew that Jack and Roe did not get along, but its not like Roe could be in two places at once so the police start looking for other suspects. But then Roe has an argument with her assistant at the library and she turns up brutally beaten the next day and her open purse is found on the hood of her bodyguard's car. An admirer sends her flowers with no name attached, her cat is suddenly sporting a new ribbon around his collar, her ex-lover is stabbed, and that is just the beginning. Roe has been found in the middle of murder and mayhem before, but this time, it's personal...

I enjoyed this book, just as I have enjoyed all of the Aurora Teagarden series, but this one was not as good as the previous books. Roe solved the crimes a little too easily and there was a little too much going on for no one else to spot that the connection between all of the goings-on was Roe herself. I know it is a small police force, but come on. Anyway, Charlaine Harris' writing style is still very engaging and clear. I always enjoy her characters and there were some new people to meet in this book that were fun to get to know because they were a little different. I just wish that the plot had been a little bit better developed and solved. I felt that the author was rushing to finish this one and just decided to end it one day, wrote the last couple of pages and called it done. Still, if you have enjoyed her other books, you will enjoy this one and, if you are like me, you like to read a series all the way through, so find a cheap copy.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Oy! [possible spoilers], February 20, 2004

By 

C. Hodges (Little Rock, AR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Book 5) (Hardcover)

Although an engaging read, this installment of the Aurora Teagarden series is the weakest. The initial shocking discovery of the body (tossed out of a low-flying plane onto Aurora's backyard) turns out to have a questionable motive behind it. When the killer is unmasked, I found myself having to stretch my disbelief beyond the breaking point. Simply put, the killer's motivation is atypical to the character. It's a good read for those who enjoy her works, but if you had to skip one, this would be it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humm, July 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Dead Over Heels (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Book 5) (Paperback)

There you are, sitting in your front lawn, trying to get a little sun. You just got your adjustable lawn chair in that just right position and low and behold somebody goes and drops a dead body in your freshly mowed grass.

Just another day for our small town librarian, Roe. She seems to come across dead bodies like other people come across stray cats. Will she figure out who the murderer is? Will she figure out why he/she thought her front lawn was a good dumping spot? Well, read and find out.

These are great no brainer books. They are easy to read, easy to follow, and require very little thought process. Sounds boring? Actually, not really. The early novels contained a lot of flat characters, but by Dead Over Heels, Harris has begun to develop more defined witty characters. I think most readers will enjoy this story.