Customer Reviews

To Hell in a Handbasket (A Claire Hanover, Gift Basket Designer, Mystery)

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I've just finished reading the second Claire Hanover mystery, and I'd have to say Beth Groundwater's main character really is strong enough to keep my interest through a whole series. A fascinatingly resourceful amateur detective, with the cleverness of Miss Marple, the sore knees of the middle-aged, and the physical prowess of an empty-nester who plans to keep skiing forever, Claire has the confidence to believe what she sees and to tell it like she sees it. Just because no one else saw the ski tracks doesn't mean they're not there. Just because no one else sees the danger doesn't mean she shouldn't protect her daughter. Just because...

So she walks into police stations and describes exactly the sort of details that someone unaccustomed to such places would notice--the presence or absence of family photographs, the pictures on the walls... She walks into a night club and learns the right words for the music by making mistakes--okay, so daughter's embarrassed, but Mom's taking charge. She leaps into action, rightly earning the nickname Mama Bear. And the reader follows along, all the time amazed and impressed and, if you happen to be me, just plain wishing I were more like her.

I guess Claire's kind of a niche hero, perfect for us moms with kids fleeing the nest, and ideal for the recipients of gift baskets. She makes me want to ski again. She believes in ibuprofen. She's real and she's fun. And she's more than capable of leaving me eagerly awaiting her next adventure.

Reading Beth Groundwater's TO HELL in a HANDBASKET during the Winter Olympics felt like just the perfect time for this Cozy-Mystery. Claire Hanover, a Gift Basket sleuth, and her husband, Roger, and daughter, Judy, live in Colorado. Knowing how to ski is like knowing how to bike down to the corner store. It is just a daily part of life. Sadly, snow, skis and snow mobiles become an ugly place for murder and sorrow too. Judy witnesses the death of Nick's sister while skiing a trail. Nick is Judy's boyfriend.

Boy, it was painful to read about Stephanie's life cut short in a quick matter of moments.. Before too long I had to stick close to Claire because she really got herself in dangerous situations trying to solve the whole messy, bloody situation. While sleuthing, Claire seemed to always overhear what she was not meant to hear. At least, she seemed able to work well with Owen the sheriff. She didn't get in his way too much. Secondly, she would report to him what she had discovered to help the investigation come to a quick close.

This is one reason I liked TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET. It was really different reading about an amateur sleuth who does not bark at or get smart with the police and detectives constantly to make a point. Claire knows how to dig around for the truth in a smooth, polite way. However, Claire can melt when it comes to sudden and bloody deaths, but she holds her own. I like her strong spirit. Don't cave until you've gotten the truth.

She also knows how to keep her man happy. I loved it when Roger and she would steal a romantic moment. I also like Claire, the heroine, because she's a tiger when it comes to protecting her daughter, Judy. Come Russian mobs or guns and rifles Claire is going to save her daughter from becoming a victim of crime. She does become rather snippy with Owen, the sheriff at times. She does not bite her tongue when it comes to telling him she is not going to wait around for the phone to ring or twiddle her thumbs when her daughter is in danger. Claire wants all hands on deck including her hands. Her number one desire is to protect her daughter. Claire's a true blue, Annie Oakley mom.

Even when it comes to riding a snow mobile to find Judy Claire rides one. Really, this is a fantastically brave move because Claire has a phobia of riding snow mobiles. Her friend's son died riding one of those "dangerous machines." This must have happened in the first Claire Hanover cozy. I am definitely going back to read the first book. A few juicy tidbits are dropped in this second book about the first book.

I also enjoyed this cozy because of the craft theme in the background. At times I wanted to stop reading, go to the craft store and pick up pretty colored items like stationery and pens, a little raffia, a little leather to make up a basket for a friend. She makes one basket almost too huge for Roger to carry to the person.

I thought Leon, the gangster, was a hoot along with his driver and bodyguard. Claire proved she was an all around person when she spent time teaching Leon to ski in order to get more information about the killer or killers of a few people in the community.

TO HELL in a HANDBASKET is the best Cozy-Mystery I have read this year. "It is so totally all that" as young people would say.

To Hell in a Handbasket, the second book in the Claire Hanover series, takes the reader along on a family ski trip to Breckinridge, Colorado. Beth Groundwater's examination of family dynamics set around a murder mystery is sure to have readers alternately biting their nails and laughing aloud. Dangers, both real and imagined, keep Claire on edge to protect the most important thing in her life, her family. Claire struggles to let her daughter become the adult she is while trying to protect her from physical danger. Populated with characters ranging from a wealthy accountant, Russian mobsters, helpful drug dealers, career snowboarders, and a thoughtful detective, To Hell in a Handbasket is a fast, fun, and entertaining read.

What will a wife do to protect her husband? In A Real Basket Case Claire sets out to prove that she didn't sleep with her physical trainer and her husband didn't kill him when he found him straddling her in bed. There was nothing she wouldn't do to prove her and his innocence.

What will a mother do to protect her only daughter? In To Hell in a Handbasket Claire again refuses to let anything nor anyone stand in her way to prevent her daughter Judy from being kidnapped, or worse... murdered.

Claire, Rodger and Judy Hanover are on a much needed ski vacation in Breckenridge, CO. Judy's boyfriend, Nick Contino, his mother, father and sister Stephanie have joined them. What was supposed to be a relaxing couple of weeks went sour quickly when Stephanie has a skiing accident that takes her life. Was it really an accident? Claire believes not. And to prove her theory she tracks down the only person that actually saw what really happened. The information given to her by this young man not only puts herself into danger, it also makes Judy the killer's next target.

I stayed on the edge of my seat as I followed Claire and Detective Owen Silverstone as they uncover the mystery of Stephanie's death. As they uncover what really goes on behind closed doors in the Contino's study. As they fit the puzzle pieces together after finding that the Russian mob is heavily involved with everything that has taken place, which includes a plan to kidnap Judy.

I loved Beth Groundwater's style of writing when I read A Real Basket Case. After reading To Hell in a Handbasket I can have to say that "what I thought couldn't get better did." For a real mystery teaser, I recommend both books, in the order they were written... A Real Basket Case and To Hell in a Handbasket.

In Colorado Springs gift basket designer Claire Hanover looks forward to the ski trip with her family. However, tragedy on the slopes devastates everyone when the sister of her daughter Judy's boyfriend dies in what is a homicide.

Claire vows to keep her daughter safe from the killer who knows Judy saw what happened and will come for her. However, Claire cannot prevent a murderer from killing others. As they remain alive while the body count rises, Claire knows the culprit is coming for her and her daughter, but to stop the adversary has proven difficult as he or she is one of them.

This is an entertaining amateur sleuth in which Claire risks her life to keep Judy safe. The story line is action-packed, but the serial killing becomes too obvious rather early in spite of some interesting spins. Still in her second Hanover Colorado mystery (see A REAL BASKET CASE), Beth Groundwater provides an interesting thriller as the killer is coming.

Harriet Klausner

I have a bone to pick with Beth Groundwater! I read the first book in the series and it was good and enjoyable and so I decided to read the next one. Dirty trick, this one is outstanding and so good that I started it after dinner and finished it about midnight the same night - thus making me very tired for work the next day.

It is such fun when a series just jumps up to the next level and this series did just that! Claire, her husband and her daughter are spending a week skiing as a family get together. Claire is looking forward to spending some time with her daughter who is on vacation from school in Paris. Things start getting complicated when the daughter wants to spend more time with her boyfriend than the family. When the boyfriends sister dies on the ski slopes Claire has to help solve the mystery of what happened to her, and why.

When I first picked up "To Hell in a Handbasket," I thought it had all the requirements of a good cozy mystery--a great title, a protagonist with a quirky occupation (she makes gift baskets), and a synopsis that sounded like cozy mystery heaven. Now that I've finished the book, I believe that I would label it more a thriller than a cozy. Why? From the first page to the last, amateur sleuth and gift basket designer extraordinaire Claire Hanover is chasing and being chased by bad guys--really bad guys. I envisioned this book would be about a little old lady who sits at home and solves mysteries using clues she finds in gift baskets. Not so! Right from the start, Claire is tumbled into the apparent murder of her daughter's friend on a ski slope. From there, the action goes uphill (and downhill, as the characters chase each other around on the Colorado ski slopes). Claire not only tries to help a local detective solve the young woman's murder, but she becomes embroiled in several more deaths, and must work frantically to prevent additional murders. There are numerous chases, gun fights, dead bodies, kidnappings, captures, and all sorts of excitement that, to me, suggest that this book would make a great action/adventure movie--or at least a television movie of the week. Personally, I prefer a quieter, more cerebral cozy mystery--where the heroine solves the crime after the fact from the comfort of her own home. However, for those of you who like lots of action in your mysteries--this one is for you.

Patricia Rockwell
author--"Sounds of Murder"

Don't mess with Mama Bear. Mothers will be able to identify with Claire Hanover, who goes into protective mode when her daughter is threatened in Beth Groundwater's To Hell in a Handbasket.

Claire Hanover had hoped to have time with her daughter, Judy, when she and her husband, Roger, brought her home from her spring semester in France, and took her skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado. But, twenty-one-year-old Judy made plans to meet up with her boyfriend's family, getting to know them. Judy and Nick's sister, Stephanie, became friends instantly, so much so that when a snowboarder almost ran them off the slope, they chased after him. Claire and Roger allowed the two younger women to go ahead, but took off immediately when they heard Judy's scream. They found a tragedy, Stephanie's body crumpled at the base of a tree.

Judy blames the snowboarder, but Claire is a little suspicious because she found ski tracks heading directly toward Stephanie. Unfortunately, when the ski patrol arrived, the tracks were obliterated. Claire doesn't have evidence to convince Sheriff's Detective Owen Silverstone, but she has her suspicions. And, all of her instincts say there was someone other than the snowboarder involved.

When she meets Nick's family at the hospital, Nick and his father's actions do nothing to allay Claire's suspicions. Her hackles rise, when she realizes she knows nothing about the young man her daughter likes. Judy won't like it, but Claire Hanover will do everything she can to ensure her daughter's safety, even if it means pushing herself into the investigation of a suspicious death.

Claire Hanover says, "I'm a gift basket designer, a mother, and a wife, and that's all." Those are the roles that are important to her, and the reasons she found herself caught up in two mysteries, first in Beth Groundwater's A Real Basket Case, and now in To Hell in a Handbasket. She's a mother afraid to let go of her adult daughter, and facing threats to her family. She'll work hand-in-hand with the police, but nothing will stop her from protecting Judy when she's in danger.

Groundwater's book is a fast-paced family mystery, for readers who enjoy Diane Mott Davidson's books. The book has the same family feeling that Davidson's fans will appreciate.