Customer Reviews

Freezer Burn

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fun & funny read with enough twists & turns to keep the pages turning. The play on words for the various characters is clever. As is the name of the town where the story unfolds. You'll just have to read it to see what I mean.

I was looking forward to reading this book after good word-of-mouth, and I was not disappointed.
Peri Minneopa is a new private detective after years of being a housecleaner. She finds a frozen, severed hand in the freezer of one of her former housekeeping customers, a Dean Martin-worshipping man named Bennie Needles, and the adventure begins. With her best friend, Beebs, who works in the city morgue,and her boyfriend, Skip, a detective, she looks to solve a crime that involves nursing homes, old Hollywood, bookies, and other intriguing clues, all the while trying to take a pregnancy test that may change her entire life at 50. I give this book a Five Dirty Martini grade for a great read!

Gayle Carline is an Illinois girl who moved to California in 1978. She started writing and riding horses at about the same time, and the two loves quickly merged in the form of articles for the California Riding magazine. She moved on to a humor column in her local newspaper, the Placentia News Times. Mysteries soon followed.

Peri Minneopa (which sounds suspiciously similar to peri-menopause) is a newly minted private investigator, after years of running her own house cleaning business. Of course she has a handsome and vital policeman as her main squeeze, which comes in handy when things get rough. Her first case involves a mangled hand found in the freezer of one of her old housecleaning accounts. Benny Needles (who is described as a hyper obsessive-compulsive) now owns his mother's home and has turned it into a shrine to honor Dean Martin. Benny can't help constantly attracting police attention, due to his innate weirdness. The main question that emerges is...where is the body, and why are more bodies popping up?

"'Benny, what happened?' she asked him.

'Miss Peri,' he said. 'They think I killed him.'

'Killed who?' Peri looked past Benny to his yard. A body lay crumpled, in the overgrown grass.

'I don't know,' he replied. 'The guy who was sneaking.'

Per walked around to the fence, and ran into Officer Monroe.

'Who was it?'

'ID says David Waters,' he told her. 'Stabbed with a bread knife.'

'And what makes you think Benny did it?'

Officer Monroe shrugged. 'It was his knife.'"

Mysteries with missing bodies or body parts are generally very entertaining, and Ms. Carline capitalizes on this with her perky style of descriptive character names. The plot is a good one...where, oh where, is the body, and where is the missing mega-ring that is needed by the family member who is up to his neck in debt with some very unsavory characters? It all adds up to great fun and an interesting and fresh read from Ms. Carline.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

Great read. When cleaning out a friends old style freezer compartment in a refrigerator our favorite P.I., Peri finds a frozen hand with a beautiful ring still on the finger. The mystery unfolds when Peri is caught up in helping find out who the hand belongs too, the ring and the why and who of a delightful mystery. Great characters and descriptions of the scene help make this novel a hard to put down mystery. Very funny and never disappointing this is a highly recommended novel for readers of authors like Janet Evanovich and Joan Francis.
REggie Ridgway

I really enjoyed this book. Peri use to clean houses for a living until she got her PI's license. She does small work at the moment with insurance companies etc until Benny Needles calls on Peri to help get an artifact out of his freezer as he is a big Dean Martin's fan. Peri comes across a severed hand with a big expensive ring and the fun begins when all sorts of shady characters come out and play. With so many interesting characters in this book, it keeps you guessing right up till the very end.

Fun. Amusing. Enjoyable. In a world gone mad with nasty unreasoned political attacks on all sides, here's a pleasant, tight, commendable Southern California story of murder and theft. It is populated by a raft of odd and intriguing characters who interact in logical, amusing and real situations. I had the feeling from the first that these were likeable people to whom I could relate.

One of the nice and even unusual aspects of the book is the age of the protagonists. Yes, there are two, even though the book focuses on the female lead, a 50-year old blond named Periwinkle Minneopa. Her lover is a sharp detective on the Placentia PD. He's single and a few years older than Peri.

Peri is starting a new career. She's been a professional house cleaner for a number of years and is anxiously becoming a private investigator. That mean she finds herself occasionally in conflict with her lover as well as finding him in her bed from time to time. More frequently, as the novel progresses.

Accepting a call from a former cleaning client who is a little off the main stream--he is obsessed with Dean Martin--Peri cleans Benny's refrigerator-freeze and once the cold clog is mostly melted what remains is a frozen hand. Thus begins a straightforward detective story leading to a satisfactory conclusion.

Along the way readers will be treated to some amusing and odd situations, such as the question of a possible pregnancy, and a relationship between a teenaged Goth musician and his girl friend. The girl friend is the daughter of one of Peri's close friends, Blanche Debussy. Blanche just happens to be a forensic scientist employed by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Author Gayle Carline has a nice sense of humor, a good observational eye and the writing talent to fashion a fine plot. I hope to see more of Periwinkle Minneopa's adventures from Gayle Carline in the very near future.

Fun. Amusing. Enjoyable. In a world gone mad with nasty unreasoned political attacks on all sides, here's a pleasant, tight, commendable Southern California story of murder and theft. It is populated by a raft of odd and intriguing characters who interact in logical, amusing and real situations. I had the feeling from the first that these were likeable people to whom I could relate.

One of the nice and even unusual aspects of the book is the age of the protagonists. Yes, there are two, even though the book focuses on the female lead, a 50-year old blond named Periwinkle Minneopa. Her lover is a sharp detective on the Placentia PD. He's single and a few years older than Peri.

Peri is starting a new career. She's been a professional house cleaner for a number of years and is anxiously becoming a private investigator. That mean she finds herself occasionally in conflict with her lover as well as finding him in her bed from time to time. More frequently, as the novel progresses.

Accepting a call from a former cleaning client who is a little off the main stream--he is obsessed with Dean Martin--Peri cleans Benny's refrigerator-freeze and once the cold clog is mostly melted what remains is a frozen hand. Thus begins a straightforward detective story leading to a satisfactory conclusion.

Along the way readers of the novel Freezer Burnwill be treated to some amusing and odd situations, such as the question of a possible pregnancy, and a relationship between a teenaged Goth musician and his girl friend. The girl friend is the daughter of one of Peri's close friends, Blanche Debussy. Blanche just happens to be a forensic scientist employed by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Author Gayle Carline has a nice sense of humor, a good observational eye and the writing talent to fashion a fine plot. I hope to see more of Periwinkle Minneopa's adventures from Gayle Carline in the very near future.

I'm just going to put this out there - I don't usually read mysteries, but I picked up this one to support a fellow writer. I'm so glad I did. The book is fun, fast paced, and a great adventure. The relationships are wonderful, to say the least. I wish Peri much luck in the P.I. business and I'm anxious to see what she does next!

When I picked up FREEZER BURN, I knew I was in for a great cozy mystery with some twists and turns that kept the story fresh and interesting. What I didn't expect was the humor! Writing humor can be such tricky terrain for writers, but Gayle Carline does it brilliantly. Whether it's her interview with an old lady with a thing for taxidermy or her misadventures with a home pregnancy test, our intrepid heroine, Peri Minneopa, had me laughing out loud and rooting for her from the first page.

But Peri, a fiftyish newbie sleuth out to prove herself, isn't the only character you'll love. Carline packs her novel with a cast that will delight and amuse you, especially her oddball client, Benny. His paranoia and addiction to all things related to Dean Martin are strangely endearing.

This memorable tale marks a grand entrance in the mystery world for a Peri Minneopa series. I can't wait for more!

After picking up this book at the author's launch party, I found it hard to put down. Being from Orange County (Placentia to be specific), I found it fun to follow PI, Peri, all over the North Orange County area as she tried to solve a local murder mystery. My mind kept jumping from one possibility to another winding through twists and turns. The minute you finish the book, you'll find yourself asking, "What's next for Peri?" She's a character you'll love to follow, because she feels like she could be one of your friends or colleagues. It's fun to realize others will get to know our fine city of Placentia and, perhaps, seek out why it's known as "A Pleasant Place to Live"...not die :)

Joanna Keating-Velasco
A Is for Autism F Is for Friend: A Kid's Book for Making Friends with a Child Who Has Autism
In His Shoes, A Short Journey Through Autism