Customer Reviews

Drop-Dead Blonde

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

 

 

Do blondes really have more fun? Sure and the authors in this book show that even dying can be a ball. Get ready for four funny stories, each taking a different kind of blonde and showing what can happen when girls just want to have fun.

Nancy Martin's "Slay Belles," puts Nora Blackbird on the trail of a shopaholic who will do anything for the perfect purse. Dogs, sisters, and the general madness of Christmas make this a fun read.

Elaine Viets' terrific "Killer Blonde," gives Helen Hawthorne a break as she listens to her over the top landlady's interesting account of two blondes out of the past who duel to the death over office politics.

Denise Swanson's "Dead Blondes Tell No Tales," was my favorite. The ending was a complete surprise and the story had me laughing out loud. In this novella the small town of Scumble River is the perfect setting for a story of shenanigans that occupy school psychologist Skye Denison while she works at a bowling alley during spring break. Skye has to deal with sex toys, false alarms, karaoke, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike contest--not to mention the blonde.

Victoria Laurie's "Blind Sighted" was a new character for me. Abby Cooper is a psychic detective who finds her self at a paranormal convention rather than the vacation she thought she was going on. When a nonbeliever is murdered at the seminar Abby decides to find the killer. This charming story rounds out a fantastic foursome.

Bite sized stories from 4 authors. I was a first time reader new to their works except for Victoria Laurie's. All stories of course involved blonde women as the title suggests. Like they say, blondes have more fun but they may end up in more trouble.

Nancy Martin - 2 stars. I found her style of writing difficult to get into. In the first place, all her characters seem to have wierd names that seem to imply that they are rather ditzy. Lots of brand names some imaginary thrown around as the sleuth used to be wealthy.

Denise Swanson - 4 stars. Liked the down to earth girl in a small town working as a counsellor in school full time but doubles up as a sleuth during school vacations.

Elaine Viets - 4 stars. Interesting plot in this book seen thru a retrospective angle going back to the 1970's.

Victoria Laurie - 5 stars. Ah, my favourite amateur sleuth author who never fails to deliver with her protaganist, Abby Cooper's, pyschic powers in solving crimes.

This collection of four mysteries about blondes isn't earth shattering, but it's a cute read suitable for riding on the subway or lying on the beach. Some of the mysteries end up being quite silly (&without any real clues to help you figure them out), but the storeies do get progressively better as the book continues. The Dead End Job and the Psychic Eye mysteries were my favorites...the writing was a bit better with more developed characters and more intense mysteries. I suggest taking this book out from a library or buying it used. While it's not really bad, you might not want to spend full price for this mystery anthology.

`Slay Belles' by Nancy Martin tells the story Lucy who is ex-debutante and hot mafia man who solve a high-end department store murder.

`Killer Blonde' by Elaine Viets does a flash back to the 1970's telling a dead-end job mystery.

`Dead Blondes Tell no tales' by Denise Swanson the best book of all the four. This tells the story of Skye who spend her spring break week working at her boyfriends mothers `Bunny' bowling ally. Bunnies' friend arrives from Vegas and then the chaos mystery unfolds. The romantic tension between the Skye's current boyfriend a funeral home director and hot local police chief is electric. I am off to find more books by this author.

`Blind sighted' by Victoria Laurie finds Abby Cooper at Psychic convention and solving a murder with the help of her rich sister and spunky elderly lady. I am off to read more of the Psychic Eye Mysteries.

I really liked the DROP-DEAD BLONDE anthology, which I bought for the short story by Victoria Laurie. Unfortunately, other than the characters being the same, it doesn't really fit into her Psychic Eye Mysteries series. Definitely read the other stories in the Psychic Eye Mysteries series, but don't worry if you read this one out of chrological (by publication date) order.

For a quick read, "Drop Dead Blonde" is a good choice. Four authors with quick mysteries followed by a chapter in each one of the author's next book. It made you want more. My favorite was Victoria Laurie's. The short story and snippet from her next book had me online ordering the rest of her books. This is a good way to try out new authors. Good read!

Four mini-books in one makes for a good book to take along on beach weekends.

I'd just read the first Blackbird Sisters mystery last week, so they were still fresh in my mind. Obviously this story takes place after a few more installments of the series, but I enjoyed this one enough to order the others and bring myself up to speed.

The Dead End Job series is one of my favorites, and I liked the way the author crafted a mystery from the past. It was something different and quite enjoyable.

The Denise Swanson story is the one that lost me. I've pretty much given up this series because Skye and all her friends are such nerds that it's painful and unbelievable to read about them solving mysteries (and even more painful to read about Skye trying to be romantic and sexy). Add in the silly characters, and this one was a real bust.

This was my first time reading Victoria Laurie, and I really enjoyed it. I'll be picking up the Abby Cooper series soon. Brilliant idea to package her with three established authors in order to get the word out about this new find.

I mostly use my kindle at airports and while traveling, and this is a good book for that purpose. Not great art, but the editing is better than many Kindle books and the authors are well-known.

I know I'm slow but this is the first time I've gone to write a review and found out the book was out of print!

I encourage you to look for this book. If you find it, you're in for a treat. I was fortunate and bought it while copies were easily available. Two of the four authors who have stories in this anthology were new to me and two were (and are) favorites. All four mystery stories are still wonderful and I have since had the pleasure of reading all books by all four authors up to the present, consider all four as my favorite writers and have pre-ordered books written by three of the authors. I am excited!

Oh, the authors are Nancy Martin (Blackbird sisters); Elaine Viets (Dead-End Job series and Mystery Shopper series); Victoria Laurie (Psychic Eye series); and Denise Swanson (Scumble River series).

Regardless of whether you will be able to read DROP DEAD BLONDE, you can get copies of the books by these wonderful and prolific authors. I strongly advise you do so--it's for your own good reading pleasure!

Light, fluffy, entertaining and entirely enjoyable as a summer, beach read. There are some very quirky senses of humor at play in these stories but if that's something you like (I do), this will be a great way of passing a hot afternoon by the water.