Fashion Victim: A Dallas O'Connor Mystery (Dallas O'Connor Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Chloe Green (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dallas O'Connor Mysteries | Publication Date: December 1, 2002

A balmy Caribbean island is the backdrop for a chilling murder when Texas fashion stylist Dallas O'Connor goes on location to shoot a music video with a hot new girl band.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fashion stylist Dallas O'Connor is up to her eyeballs in designer clothes, rock divas and murder in her third racy whodunit (after 2001's Designed to Die), set on a Caribbean island. Having taken up residence in a rambling castle, Dallas sets to work creating the look for a debut video starring rising girl group Fate of Paradise. Green's own experience in the world of fashion helps her name-drop from Guess to Gucci and to paint a sizzling and sometimes sordid portrait of life in the fast lane. During an early morning run, Dallas discovers a body washed up on the beach, but it vanishes before she can convince anyone else that it was more than a figment of the pot she'd smoked the previous evening. Later, Dallas finds a group photo that includes the very much alive corpse. Threats via a voodoo doll, a frightening poisoning and relational difficulties among the singers threaten the shoot. Dallas recognizes a late-arriving band member as an undercover FBI agent and former boyfriend, whose very presence signals her that the Filipino mafia may be somehow mixed up in what's happening. Add another dead body, a super-sexy Latino chef and an array of dishes to rival those in Bon Appetit, and you've got a recipe for excitement. Green seems to have thought of everything: secret passages, secret lovers and secrets to die for. A cliffhanger ending will leave readers eagerly awaiting Dallas's next adventure.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Charged with designing a signature look for a new all-girl band, stylist and sometime-sleuth Dallas O'Connor happily jets off to a video shoot on an idyllic Caribbean island. At first glance her hotel, the island, and its attractive inhabitants seem perfect, but soon enough she realizes that there's trouble in paradise. The band is hiding something, someone is experimenting with voodoo curses, and the name of an old enemy surfaces--along with an undercover FBI agent and a dead body on the beach. With her usual style, Dallas manages to conduct a murder investigation amidst rum-soaked parties and a flirtation with the hotel's mouthwatering but enigmatic chef, dressing herself and everyone else fabulously all the while. Despite a cliche-ridden climax complete with a well-timed power outage, Dallas's third case is an addictive addition to the series with a setting that will make any reader long for a vacation. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (December 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575667150
• ISBN-13: 978-1575667157
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,440,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like a Frappuccino for Your Brain, November 11, 2007

By 

WMVF (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fashion Victim: A Dallas O'Connor Mystery (Dallas O'Connor Mystery S.) (Paperback)

Judge this as a frothy formula mystery, not as a rival to Arthur Conan Doyle or Elizabeth George, and it's delicious in a purely-empty-calories way. As chick-lit heroines go, fashion stylist Dallas O'Connor is smart, sensible, stands in her own light remarkably seldom, and doesn't run around being "appealing" or "winsome" by behaving in a dim-witted and self-destructive manner. She's visibly good at her job -- shows competence, doesn't just tell you she's good.

This is well-written for genre -- it's not gushy or annoyingly repetitive, characters maintain consistent voices, and the prose style doesn't get in the way of enjoying the plot. Does it have the depth of, say, a V.I. Warshawski story? No. But it's about fashion. Pretty clothes. Pretty people. Pretty sets. Mildly absurd.

You will not be a better person for reading this book, but if you're looking for light entertainment to take your mind off the world's problems, you could do so much worse.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars stylish fun, February 20, 2003

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fashion Victim: A Dallas O'Connor Mystery (Dallas O'Connor Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Murder has its place in fashion stylist (and Texan) Dallas O'Connor's third outing, but it's second to the frenetic pace, glitzy artifice and shady commercialism of the manufactured pop-music scene. Dallas, who casually drops designer names too haute to otherwise cross my radar, accepts a gig to create the look for a new all-girl band, put together by a record company contest. Dallas' first chore is an unlimited clothes-shopping spree in Paris before meeting the girls on the private Caribbean island where they are shooting their first music video. Green pulls out all the stops in describing this place, every room a palace of indulgence, a chef as handsome as he is talented, even "a stylist's fantasy" workshop. Except for its hidden door and a Mafia boss's trademark button.

It should all be too much, but somehow it works in a froth of fascinating glamour. Dallas is a dab hand with cutting-edge clothes (even if one of the girls has ballooned to a shocking size 8, maybe even 10!), the characters posture and pose delightfully, the island food and drink will make your mouth water, to say nothing of the temperamental chef, and, oh, yes, there are mysterious anomalies, nagging questions, even secret passageways and sinister secrets. We know there's a murder because the body appears on page one, before the story backtracks to its Paris beginning, and that's enough to know. High style fun.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 3rd in the series is terrible do not waste your money, February 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Fashion Victim: A Dallas O'Connor Mystery (Dallas O'Connor Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I bought the first two fashion series and really liked the first one-still think it is worth reading, the second one was okay and this one is terrible. I will not waste my money on the next Dallas mystery. The charcters are not well written or developed-as an example they have supposedly fired 40 stylist but when Dallas arrives and starts working with them-they are all smiles and easy to get along with, no complaining about the clothes, the shoes, etc. So it does not make sense. The plot line is not done well she tried to weave together too many things and the story does not hold up even if you are drinking while reading the plot is too impossible to be enjoyable. The dialogue is just bad-wincingly bad. I completely gave up on ever spending my money on this series again when the names on the passports give away a relationship that supposedly has been kept hidden from the record company who is paying for everyone to be on the exotic island-how stupid or how many drinks we were supposed to have had to think that a rep from the company would not have had copies of everyone's documentation. Do not waste your money-I won't next time.