Customer Reviews

Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead (Literary Tour Series)

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

 

 

The first in a charming new literary tour series, Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead is set in Atlanta and of course focuses on... Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind!

In addition to interesting facts about Mitchell and her book, there are fascinating and amusing characters, like Delilah Dickinson, owner of a new travel business, where she is assisted by her daughter Melissa and son-in-law Luke. This story also features her twin 16-year-old nieces, Augusta and Amelia.

This tour of Margaret Mitchell's Atlanta is the first for her business, and she encounters only one small fight before the disastrous visit to a nearby plantation. With actors in costume portraying various characters from the story, in a period three-story mansion made to look a bit more like Tara than it might have originally, the tour members are charmed and delighted. Delighted until "Rhett" is found stabbed in the garden during the ball, and everyone discovers their valuables have been stolen: wallets, cell phones, cameras, you name it.

The actors cannot leave the mansion, must join the tourists overnight, and so everyone doubles up on rooms. Delilah hopes to solve the murder so everyone can leave after breakfast as planned. However local policeman Lieutentant Farraday is not exactly thrilled with Delilah's continual contributions. Local professor Will Burke, in charge of the Tara recreation, is pleased to help Delilah out in her late-night, pajama-clad investigations. Might there be an attraction here? A romance for the recently divorced middle-aged business owner?

I am certainly looking forward to future literary tour mysteries with endless possibilities: Capote, Harper Lee, Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain... intriguing!

Armchair Interviews says: Well done, Livia Washburn.

This book combines my two loves: literature and living history tourism! Livia J. Washburn has a wicked sense of humor, and I just can't wait to read everything else that she's written. Just the idea of this series tickles me!

This is a fun read not to be missed, and I'm very glad that I purchased it.

In Atlanta divorced (from Dan) Delilah Dickinson opens up Delilah Dickinson's Literary Tours hiring her daughter and son-in-law, and also dealing with her battling twin teenage nieces. Her first tour is a delightful visit to landmarks famous, almost famous and obscure linked to Gone with the Wind novelist Margaret Mitchell.

The tour is doomed from the onset as Murphy would seem an optimist with everything the could go wrong going wrong; but it is at "Tara" for dinner that it finally collapses. Steven Kelley, an actor portraying Rhett Butler on the Gone with the Wind Tour, is found dead in the Tara mansion garden. The lead detective insists everyone remain at Tara while he solves the case with Delilah's interference.

With its references to Gone with the Wind including the title, readers will enjoy this Atlanta tour. The story line is amusing as a combo police procedural amateur sleuth competition. Although the whodunit is more a backdrop to the Literary Tour especially the stay at Tara, readers will enjoy this lively and colorful cozy.

Harriet Klausner

Frankly My Dears, the success of a lightweight series entry lies entirely in the appeal of the central characters and some interesting feature players. A plot twist or two is helpful, some well done wit helps considerably, a bit of suspense or danger adds spice. The rest is done by the numbers, so to speak, that is, whether it is Agatha Christie, Carolyn Hart or..............., one follows a pretty well established script for the type of series one is doing, even though that pattern may have been set by oneself in the first few successful works of the series.
Unfortunately, this first entry of a proposed mystery series whose heroine has just started a tour service, lacks much in the way of the qualities that give spark to a routine plot. Her heroine fails to show anything that hooks this reader, the supporting players are out of the pre-used bargain bin, and the style professional but with no pizazz.
About all I can say is, it is quite possible that any given reader may find the book prepossessing enough to while away the time in a bus or train station or in an airline terminal; perhaps, it will fill the travel time better than staring out the window. It is unlikely, I think, that it will give much joy or entertainment.

No, This book wasn't free, but the second book in the series was and I read that one first. I wanted to read this one because the author didn't give too much of Delilah's backstory and I felt all the way through "Huckleberry Finished" that I was missing something. Unfortunately, book I was no better at filling in Delilah's background. Still do not know why or how she got divorced, or much about her daughter or her sister, the mother of the twin nieces that figure in this book. We do learn a little bit more about Delilah's son-in-law Luke, who is a fairly major player in the plot. As for that, I thought this book did alittle better than the second one in laying out the clues, giving an observant reader a pretty fair shot at figuring out who the murderer was. On the whole, I thought this was a better book than the second, and am hoping that the third in the series will live up to that standard. I enjoyed this one and will definitely be on board for the next Literary Tour.

I thought this book was really cute. Not the best mystery ever written, but entertaining and a quick and easy read.

I had high hopes for this book when I ordered it. Couldn't wait to read it. And when I did, I came away a little disappointed. The storyline seemed to drag, the characters didn't seem to develop any as the story went on and, frankly my dear, I was relieved when it was over. I haven't read other titles by this author and, basing my decision on this one book, I probably won't. The humor was thin at best, and it felt like a sales-pitch more than an entertaining mystery.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a nice easy read and it really did have just enough, for me anyway, intrigue and suspects to keep me guessing for a few chapters. I love the backdrop of the literary tour theme. I would love to go on one some day myself. I got this book because the second in the series after this one was offered free for the Kindle a few months back and I wanted to read them in order. I'm glad I took the plunge and bought this one. There was one typo that I saw in the Kindle version of this book, but it was only one. Also, there were a few times that the sentences were not logically correct, but you knew what the author meant so it wasn't bad. For this light genre, it's a winner of a book.

I was extremely disappointed in this book. I bought it thinking what a great story line. Unfortunately,it was difficult to get into. I have passed it on to other family members who could not finish this book.