Customer Reviews

Homicide and Old Lace

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

 

 

One way I know if I like a book is how many paragraphs or pages I skim or skip. Simply put, the more I skim, the further the book sinks. No problems here!

One thing about the Mandy Dyer Mysteries is that they simply get better as the series progresses. I did not find myself skimming because her characters were interesting and drove the book.

This time, Mandy is confronted with the dilemma of cleaning the wedding gown of her ex-husband's fiancee. She tells herself that business is business and takes the job anyway. But in true Mandy Dyer fashion, she finds herself involved in a murder investigation when she walks in on her ex-husband leaning over the dead body of his fiancee on their wedding day.

As if that is not bad enough, Mandy begins to realize that someone is carefully setting her up to take the fall for this murder. As the noose tightens and all fingers point to her as the jealous ex-wife out for revenge, Mandy must use all her resources to find the killer and save herself.

I simply loved the interactions of all the characters in this book, especially between Betty the bag lady and Mandy's mother. Two women,who in their effort to help Mandy out of her dilemma end up causing her more trouble. They are two women from different ends of the spectrum and reading their verbal exchanges will have you laughing. I recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery heavily laced with fun.

Olivia Torkelson needs her grandmother's wedding dress dry cleaned and altered so that she can wear it for her own upcoming wedding. Dyer's Cleaners was recommended highly for the job, and Mandy Dyer expected nothing form this job except a big cheque. And then Mandy discovers that naive and vulnerable Olivia is marrying Mandy's womanising ex-husband! Although Mandy's natural inclination is to backout of the whole transaction, she allows herself to be persuaded that a 'job is a job' and to carry on with the alterations and to just avoid running into her sleaze bag ex-husband, Larry Landry.

Unfortunately, circumstances force Mandy into delivering the wedding dress personally, and this inevitably leads, several hours later, to Mandy discovering the bride-to-be in all her wedding glory dead with caddish Larry standing over the body! The police seem to have narrowed the suspects down to Larry and Mandy. And in spite of Mandy's policeman boyfriend's displeasure at her involvement, Mandy feels that she has to discover who murdered Olivia. The suspects are many-- from the second bitter ex-Mrs. Landry to Olivia's old boyfriend. Mandy first thought is that someone is trying to frame Larry; and then there is a second dead body and it looks as if someone is actually trying to frame her!

A good mystery and a fun read.

This is another terrific entry in the Mandy Dyer drycleaning series. (And if you think drycleaning is dull, you need to hang out with Mandy a little more!) The book is well-written, with believable characters and some nice twists that had me guessing right up to the end.

My first attempt at this series was "A Dress to Die For" from 1998. This is the second Mandy Dyer novel I've read, and it pains me to give it a negative review. I wanted to like it, and I do like the author's guts in taking the knowledge gained in her day job and making it into entertainment. Johnson has a unique setting and a deft way with words, and has developed some interesting collateral characters, but her protagonist is thoroughly unlikeable. Johnson has a potentially great character in Mandy Dyer, the dry cleaner, but keeps her immured in mystery cliché -- and not even the modern clichés, but those of the 1950's and 1960's.

Though at one point in "Homicide" Dyer describes herself as a feminist, Johnson uses the outmoded Stupid Woman / Silly Girl plot device over and over. To show what a big girl she is, Dyer refuses protection when she needs it -- over and over. To show how independent she is, she lies to the police and to people who are entitled to the truth -- over and over. And so on, and so on, all to "advance" the plot by putting Dyer into needless peril -- over and over.

Though this book was published two years after "A Dress," it shares the same flaws. "Homicide" takes things a bit further in its relentlessly callous treatment of the obligatory cop-boyfriend. In "Homicide and Old Lace," not once does Dyer tell him the truth -- not once, not in any interchange they have throughout the book. She lies to him on a personal level. She lies to him on a professional level. She lies to him even when she can be 100% certain he will eventually discover the lie. She treats him with a petulance that inevitably rises to malice. She willfully stands him up for dinner; and on another night, she has a lavish dinner which she charges to his credit card although he wasn't even there (because he was working a homicide, a reason any sane person would accept, but which Dyer disdains). And then, about five pages from the end, with no justification whatsoever, she snarls at him that he's taking his career too seriously and perhaps they ought not see each other "for a while." (If he were really taking his career seriously, he'd have arrested her for obstruction of justice long ago).

Perhaps, at long last, this is meant to telegraph to the appalled reader that Johnson is as tired of the pasteboard cop character as Dyer is, and plans to write him out of the series. What is entirely unbelievable is that a real cop, or any adult for that matter, would have put up with such a lying shrew for more than two dates, much less more than two books.

Two's enough for me; I've had all the fun I can stand. I know the series goes on for several years more, and I hope that Johnson lets her character grow, or at least grow up.

This is the first Mandy Dyer mystery I've read. I immediately ordered 2 more. The characters are well written, the mystery doesn't bog down, and I find I am interested in seeing how the characters evolve.
Mandy Dyer-owner of Dyers Cleaners-is brought a dress to clean & alter for a 'new bride'. Along the way, she finds out the groom is her lying, cheating, ex-husband. When murder is discovered, she's right there. Did the murderer send the bride to her shop? Was the bride aware of who Mandy was? Does Mandy's relationship with her (cop) boyfriend sink or float? These questions and more keep the book hopping. It was a great read.

This I do have to say was one of the best in the series. There is much more character development with Mandy because you get to view into her past a bit more and see her family a bit more. There are still some distant characters involved, but through time those will come about (hopefully).

There also seemed to be a mystery within a mystery so there were a couple of layers built up here also. I never got through a Mandy Dyer so fast, what a page turner!