Customer Reviews

Who Killed Swami Schwartz? (Senior Sleuth Mystery Series)

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

 

 

Kate Kennedy attends a dinner for Swami Schwartz, founder of the Palmetto Beach Yoga Institute. Swami drops dead because someone spiked his double espresso with cyanide.

Kate is recently widowed and fairly new to retirement in South Florida. Her ex-sister-in-law Marlene lives in the same condo building. The two of them decide to try to figure out why he was poisoned.

Their investigation leads them to a cryogenics firm where you can have your head frozen for $30,000 or your whole body for $128,000.

There is a plethora of suspects. Can they figure out who did it and why without putting themselves in danger?

I really enjoy this series. I think Kate is a fun senior sleuth. The escapades that she and Marlene get into are very entertaining. It is a fun, fast read! A great cozy mystery.

For those of you who might not know, she has also written the Ghostwriter series as Noreen Wald. They're great fun too!

I highly recommend this book!


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Generally speaking, if you like one book (or series) by a certain author, you'll like any other books by that author, even if published under a different name. I really liked the `Ghostwriter' mysteries by Noreen Wald, and after starting this book, realized that she's also this author, Nora Charles. Whichever name she goes by, she's still an author worth reading. I didn't happen to see the first book in this series, so I was a bit at sea with the set-up, but soon caught up.

As in her other books, the characters are so well-delineated, you feel as though they're people you know. Or might like to know. Well, most of them, at any rate. As a rather recent widow, Kate Kennedy is now living in Florida, far away from most of her family. A former sister-in-law Marlene lives in the same condo building, and is the impetuous one of the two. Kate stops to think before she rushes into difficulties.

Of course, she also `talks' to her deceased husband as well as her dog, Ballou. All in all, this is a charming book, with a reasonable mystery included. It's wonderful to read about active, busy seniors going about their active, busy lives. They (we) think about life just as the younger folks do, dating, money, sex - you name it! Life is universal, after all.

Serious-minded folks might think this is just a fluff book. Not so. Well-written, well-plotted books don't come along all that often. Enjoy this one! I'm off to find the first book in the series.

This is the 2nd book in the Kate Kennedy mystery series. I enjoyed this one.
The senior ladies at Ocean Vista can be a riot. Kate gets drawn into investigating who killed Swami Schwartz the founder of the Palmetto Beach Yoga Institute, where everything is fabulous, the dancing, the food etc...that is until Swami steps all over Kate's feet while dancing with her and then he keels over dead as a doornail after someone spikes his drink. Kate again teams up with her best friend and sister in law Marlene for a new mystery and sort through all the suspects to find the killer. You will find Dallas Dalton an interesting character as well.
Kate Kennedy and her friends will make you laugh out loud. It's a quick and cozy fun read and I highly recommed this series.

A cute book - but, oh, that ending! How could an author get her two heroines inside a deserted building at night, with someone holding a gun on them, and not explain how they got away?! A serious omission!

Apart from that, it was an enjoyable mystery with two lively 60-something ladies, Kate & Marlene, who prove that you can always sleuth & snoop at any age. The South Florida setting is nicely described. I see the author, "Nora Charles", (very tongue-in-cheek) is actually Noreen Wald, who wrote an entertaining series about a woman who was a ghostwriter. If the Kate & Marlene series continues, I would certainly read the next book.

And dangerous. Dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker Kate Kennedy is just starting to adjust to widowhood in South Florida when her yogi, Swami Schwartz, drops dead after having dinner with his rich and eccentric financial backers. All the suspects seem unnaturally obsessed with death and burial - or at least with finding some alternatives to both.

With the help of her colorful ex-sister-in-law Marlene and Ballou, her perceptive West Highland Terrier, Kate discovers stranger than usual doings at the Ocean Vista retirement condos. (You'll never look at your freezer in the same way again.)

Kate is engaging, Marlene is hysterical. The residents of Ocean Vista need a keeper. And all the available men have too many secrets to make any chance at romance predictable.

Just when she's got you completely tied up in a knotty plot, Nora Charles untangles all the threads with a deft flick of the wrist for a satisfying snap of an ending. I highly recommend Who Killed Swami Schwartz; it's even better than Kate's first adventure, Death with an Ocean View.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first novel in this series by the author, and started out enjoying the second, "Who Killed Swami Schwartz", there were two major drawbacks to this title. First, the excessive dwelling on, by the main character Kate Kennedy, about her husband's death during the signing of the condo and her continued lamentations regarding her missing him, takes away a great deal from the enjoyment of the series. As readers, dear author, take note: we get it, he died, she's a widow, it's a lot to contend with. Let's move on with character development. Second, while I won't give away the ending to this novel, the denoument is incredibly disappointing. Did the author, Nora Charles, run out of steam and lose interest in the telling? It certainly appears to be the case. I will definitely read the third in this series, if it becomes available, and hope that it will be as interesting and clever as the first.

Who Killed Swami Schwartz? draws us further into the Florida retirement intrigues of newly-widowed Kate Kennedy, her faithful West Highland Terrier, Ballou, and her boisterous sister-in-law Marlene. Author Nora Charles weaves an intricate, not to say outrageous, plot, as she did in the first book of the series, Death with an Ocean View. Kate and Marlene get into plenty of trouble, especially when investigating why a renowned yoga guru should suddenly die at a party. Their research leads them to a cryogenics firm where you can get your head frozen for $30,000 or your whole body for $128,000 and the local pub Marlene likes to frequent. Suspects abound, including a distinguished doctor, a handsome Indian yoga associate of Swami Schwartz, the bleached-blonde widow of a Westerns film actor, the sweet young waitress at the pub.....

Charles clearly has fun with her writing and passes it along to her readers. Her characters are multidimensional and believable. There is also an element of infectious farce. Whether on a beach or at a ski resort, in an airport or at home, readers will spend enjoyable hours with this delightful Florida-based series.