Customer Reviews

Died Blonde: A Bad Hair Day Mystery

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

 

 

I liked the cute story about a Jewish salon owner sleuth, Marla Shore. The book is descriptive of its South Florida locale, so those who live there or have traveled to the area can identify the roads, places, and towns, and maybe with Cohen's cultural view of the area. Boca Raton, etc.

Marla enjoys many adventures and meets many zany people en route to solving the mystery (which the reader should find out, so I won't go on!). Interwoven into the tale is a love story between Marla and the hunky detective, Mr. Dalton Vail. Part of the story tells about how Marla invites Dalton into her Jewish world, including detailed descriptions of Rosh Hoshannh. Ms. Cohen lovingly details how Jewish Marla's family is.

As a mystery, the book contains some villains and other characters that Marla encounters along the way, descriptively described by Cohen. There are the illegal "French" immigrants. An Irish-Italian chain smoking woman at an Indian casino, and a whole host of others. Ms. Cohen mentions and frames the ethnicity of every character in the book, some positive, some negative. But I'm not sure that really adds to the reality of the story, nor is her skewed stereotyping really necessary for a book for this age group.

Ya gotta love Marla. She keeps her salon in perfect order, avoids her mother's good intentions, develops her relationship with her boyfriend's daughter, keeps an eye on her auntie and her best friend, survives a hurricane, considers marriage, and helps run her dead rival's shop--all without a hair ever out of place. Well, okay, maybe she needed a little touch up after the hurricane, but all in all, Marla's got it covered.

As usual, the characters are fun, the setting is realistic, and the murder is most foul. And the reader is left wanting more. Can't wait for the next book in this terrific series.

Hairstylist Marla Shore finds her rival, Carolyn Sutton, dead in the meter room in back of their strip mall. Her boyfriend, Detective Vail who is a hunk, asks Marla for her help. He feels people will talk to her about this better than they will to him. She is a hairstylist, and they know her. Usually he's telling her to not investigate, so she jumps at the chance to help.

She's also trying to set her mom up with Sam from the hardware store. Marla doesn't like Roger, her mom's boyfriend. Since he's out of town, she works hard to bring her mom and Sam together.

Marla talks to Carolyn's psychic and is told some information about her own family that concerns her. She talks to Carolyn's bingo partner. Marla and her best friend end up visiting a nearby town and meeting with some psychics to gain more information.

Instead of clearing up the details, the waters just get muddier. Plus, a hurricane is bearing down on Florida. Can Marla uncover the truth about Marla's death, as well as some other issues that have come out of her death, as well as keep her own salon working, and keep herself and those important to her safe and healthy?

Things with Vail are heating up, and she has to come to terms with her feelings for him and his daughter. Is she ready to make things more permanent?

I always enjoy books in this series. Marla is a great character. Her salon business brings her in touch with so many people. She is always able to get the dirt that Vail cannot get. The relationship between Marla and Vail is wonderful too. I can't wait to read the next book and see what happens to them.

I highly recommend this book.

Nancy J. Cohen's "Died Blonde" (Bad Hair Day Mystery 6) has an interesting plot, but the writing and characterization are at best juvenile.

I cannot say that I didn't like this book, yet I won't be bothering to get the series. I got this book in a collection of cozy mysteries and in that respect it held up. It was an enjoyable mystery. That said, I also have to point out that the main character makes references to what must be previous books in the series, none of which are relevant to the plot and often detracting from it. The relationship beween the jewess and the goyim is overplayed and the main character is more self-absorbed with personal problems that solving the riddle (which actually seems to be an after-thought). In fact the christian boyfriend and his daughter add more to her personal angst than the murder mystery. Still when she does focus on the murder the twists and turns of plot development are worth the read. Still if this is your kind of read I would probably start the series from the beginning. Me, I think other authors do the cozy mystery thing better as their books can stand alone, but are so enjoyable you want to read more from them.

Ms. Cohen is a delightful writer. Her books are good reading fun and yet she adds the mystery we all love. I love her books!

When the power goes out in her hairdressing salon, Marla Shore instantly suspects her competitor and enemy Carolyn Sutton of sabotage. But when she finds Carolyn's dead body in the electricity room, Marla herself becomes a suspect. Thanks to boyfriend-cop Vail, Marla doesn't have too many problems with the police, but Carolyn's psychic tells Marla that Carolyn is begging her to solve the case--from beyond the grave.

There are plenty of suspects. Carolyn's business hadn't been doing well, but the woman had plenty of money. Could she have made that much playing Indian Bingo, or was there another darker explanation? Marla investigates the local chiropracter, the landlord, Carolyn's sister, and the psychic herself. Meanwhile, Vail is assigned a second murder case--a young girl who had a hunk of hair cut from her head in exactly the same way that Carolyn had.

Marla's busy social life doesn't let up. She has to decide what to do with her relationship to the hunky cop, help her aging aunt deal with bills and taking care of herself, fix her mother up with an upgrade boyfriend, socialize with Vail's teenage daughter, and run her business.

Author Nancy J. Cohen writes convincingly of a self-absorbed sleuth as she deals with her anger over Carolyn's competition even after the woman is dead. Cohen delivers an interesting mystery with a wealth of truly criminal people as suspects--apparently there isn't really anyone honest in Florida these days. The writing is occasionally clunky, especially in the opening, but becomes more smooth as Cohen gets into the story.

"Died Blonde" is the 6th in the Bad Hair Day Mysteries. I was too lazy to write individual reviews on each, so this review is of this book and an overall review of the series, which includes:

Permed To Death. Hair Raiser. Murder By Manicure. Body Wave. Highlights To Heaven. Died Blonde.

Died Blonde:

Marla Shore, owner of Cut `N" Dye Salon isn't happy when going out to check why the electricity in her shop has gone off, stumbles over the body or her rival and former employer, Carolyn Sutton.

Who else but Marla, who was angry with Carolyn for moving her new shop into the same mall as she is located and undercutting her prices would want the woman dead.

Marla is determined to find that out. It could be Carolyn's sister, Linda Hall, who was rumored to be jealous of Carolyn, and was angry when she didn't inherit the hair salon. Or maybe Carolyn's psychic, Wilda Cleaver, who did inherit the shop, did she kill Carolyn to get it?

With the help of her boyfriend, Lt. Dalton Vail, Marla is determined to prove she didn't kill her rival, even though she wanted to many times.

Highlights:

The relationship between Marla and Dalton Vail and his daughter Brianna. They met in the first book, "Permed To Death" where Dalton was investigating Marla as a murder suspect. Just because she was locked in the shop alone with the victim, made and served her the cup of coffee with the poison and had been being blackmailed by the victim for years, shouldn't have made Marla a suspect should it?

This has been a very slow going relationship, Marla has a tragedy in her past that is making it difficult for her to bond with any child. This tragedy has been well worked into the storyline and Marla's reactions and choices make her a very realistic character.

The mysteries. Except for this book, all the mysteries have been great. In several of the books, both the victims and the murderer have been characters who have appeared in the series since the first book.

The supporting characters. There is a wide range of returning characters from major ones, such as Dalton and Marla's mother, to minor characters, such as Mr. Thomson the landlord and Carolyn herself, who appeared briefly in each book. Occasionally, a minor character, such as "goat" the free lance dog groomer will become a major character in a book and then go back to a supporting character.

Lowlights:

Not enough use of supporting characters. Except for her mother, and Dalton, many of the supporting characters are underused. Marla does everything by herself. She only rarely will involve anyone with her crime solving, even her best friend Tally is only used as a sounding board.

The mystery in this book. The murderer might as well have had `KILLER' written across their forehead, they were so obvious. The fact that Marla didn't see it made me wonder about her intelligence.

Overall a very satisfying series. Looking forward to the next in the series.

When the lights go out during working hours at Marla Shore's beauty parlor Cut'N'Dye, the owner's first thought is that Carolyn Sutton of Carolyn's Hairstyle Heaven is up to one of her tricks. Since Carolyn moved her business into the same shopping center where Marla is located, the newcomer has been playing dirty tricks on her in hopes of stealing or at least reducing her rival's customer base. When Marla goes to her meter room, she trips over the dead body of her competitor.

Marla's significant other Detective Vail heads the investigation. This should help Marla who has publicly announced to her customers that she would kill Carolyn if she was responsible for the outage. Vail does not suspect her, but asks her to help him by talking with people who knew the victim especially her employees. Marla learns that Carolyn had a lot of secrets including being a blackmailer, but who had the greatest motive to murder her remains the prevalent secret.

DIED BLONDE is a hair raising amateur sleuth mystery that also contains a fine romantic subplot between Vail and Shore with her having to decide whether she can fully commit to him and his daughter who she also loves. There are more suspects than Marla has customers so readers and the heroine will wonder who the real killer is. Nancy J. Cohen is a terrific writer who always provides her customers with a stylish tale as the author has done with this fine novel.

Harriet Klausner