Customer Reviews

Love You Madly (Daytime Mysteries)

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

 

 

I don't know why, because this was very well plotted and entertaining. I think perhaps that as the third in the series, the novelty is wearing off for me.

This series has as its detective-heroine Morgan Tyler, a producer-writer of a hit soap opera -- scratch that -- daytime drama. One of the leads has a problem: he's being stalked by a woman who thinks she is married to him. Morgan feels responsible for her stars since if anything happened to them she'd have a serious production problem. So she gets involved in trying to protect him from this women, although he refuses to involve the police. In the process of dealing with this woman, she ends up going to see someone who not long afterwards ends up the victim of foul play. Although one of her boyfriends, a homicide detective, warns her away from involvement, she IS involved, particularly when a murder attempt is made a few days later on someone else involved with the show.

The quick pace, entertaining behind-the-scenes-in-daytime-drama setting, and likeable main character (Morgan) make for a quick and enjoyable read. This is not Elizabeth George, however --like the dramas this author writes about, the emphasis is on entertainment, not high literary or artistic value. I intend to continue reading the series with pleasure, because sometimes I just want to be entertained!

"Love You Madly" is absolutely the best in the series so far. Linda Palmer has created great characters, and set them in a real page turner of a mystery novel.

Soaps, Stars and now with this latest in the series ... Stalkers!

How does Linda Palmer do it? One could say ... "it's a mystery."

There's a pitfall inherent in series mysteries--how to continue to spin new plots, keeping the audience guessing, intrigued and involved. Hats off to you, Ms. Palmer, who has done a superb job in this, the third of the series.

I thought I was sufficiently charmed by Soap ... er, sorry, Daytime Drama Producer Morgan in the first two books. But the latest plotlines in "Love You Madly" are true delight: Best friend Nancy's wrangle with a horrid soon-to-be stepdaughter; three fabulous men all begging for Morgan's favors (excuse me? Three? In this day and age? Ms. Palmer might be accused of adding an element of fantasy!); the soap star with a mysterious past, completely different than Book #2, "Love Her to Death," and of course, the crazed stalker replete with her own twisted relative. The pacing, plot twists and well-drawn characters just keep getting better.

Loved #1 and #2. As for this Book #3, "Love You Madly": Loved it ... supremely.

Can't wait for #4!

I have read 2 of the books in this series--they are both great. The story lines are dramatic but believable. The characterization is great--I hate when you get a good story, but the characters whine.
I am looking forward to more books by this author.

Great addition to what has become my favorite series. Can't wait for the next! Would love to see these made into films.

Linda Palmer, author of Love You Madly, is a writing teacher. I always thought it would be hard to be a public speaking teacher, since you are discussing what is right and wrong about public speaking while the students are watching what you... speak! I guess if you are a writing teacher, students look at what you write.

In the case of Palmer, she seems to be of the "descriptive writer" camp. Don't just write that someone jumps in their car and drives away. Tell the color and model of car, the process of looking in the side mirrors as you pull away from the curb on 86th street in front of JuJu's Salon, et cetera.

That is obvious from this book. Now this isn't a bad technique. However, it seems overused in Love You Madly.

Morgan Tyler is the head writer for the popular daytime soap opera (daytime drama) "Love of My Life." The characters are all, well, unique. On top of this, Morgan herself has an amazing collection of men who love her madly. Then a stalker of one of her actors goes from troublesome to ...murderous? And Morgan becomes the next target. She, and her beaus, and all of her friends, work to solve this mystery.

So there is a "light mystery" novel here, surrounded by the descriptions:

"The coffee finished brewing. I took two mugs from the cabinet over the counter and emptied the grounds and the filter into the garbage can" (p. 287).

"When my eyes adjusted to the soft lighting, I saw that Jean-Luc's was furnished with deep banquettes upholstered in shades of ginger and rust. Long cloths in a subtle floral pattern covered the tables. Serene woodland murals lined the walls above the mahogany wainscoting" (p. 23).

"A quarter of a mile up Old Road I came to a freshly painted, two-story,classic white colonial-style building, set back against thick woods. In front of the hospital, a wide lawn that was just beginning to show signs of spring grass swept down from the colonnaded entrance to the road. A discreet oxidized bronze sign on one of the stone pillars flanking the mouth of the driveway identified the place as Franklin Woods Hospital" (p. 82).

With apologies to Amadeus, does this seem like "too many notes?" Like I stated, the mystery was somewhat enjoyable, but the filler was harder to take. Heroine Morgan seems to be able to do anything. And she's a soap opera writer!

Love You Madly is light entertainment.

Recently, I wrote a review of "Shoes to Die For," a cozy mystery written with the sensibilities of a TV sitcom. It was with no little surprise that I next stumbled on "love you madly" [sic], a cozy mystery with the sensibilities of a soap opera.

Oh, I know that the current PC term is "daytime drama," and even if I didn't, the point comes up several times in the book. Nevertheless, I remember to listening to "One Man's Family" on the radio back in the forties, and "Stella Dallas," and that strangest of all radio confections, "Lorenzo Jones," the daily comedy soap, if you can imagine such a thing. Every one of them was an unabashed soap opera and their successors are still sliced out of the same old baloney. (I hasten to assert that baloney, given the right time and place, can be a very tasty thing.)

The heroine of the show ... er, book is Morgan Tyler, thirty-ish head writer and producer of a top-rated, New York-based TV soap opera called "Love of My Life." Morgan is surrounded by men with names like Link, Sean, Matt, Chet, Jud, Wade and Cody, not to mention mysterious Philippe.

Morgan often wears casual and concealing clothes, but the discerning eye can see, and the flapping tongue can comment that she has a stunning figure.

Morgan lives large. She resides at "the Dakota, the nineteenth century Gothic landmark on the corner of Seventy-Second Street and Central Park West where I have a co-op on the third floor." [Page 29 of the paperback edition.]

Morgan has friends, close ones. One is "Nancy Cummings, rising star in corporate law, [who] had been born beautiful, rich, and smart. She also came equipped with the kindest heart of anyone I'd ever met. But her kind heart made her vulnerable." [Page 29.] Another is Penny Cavanaugh, who had until recently worked at Natasha's-on-Madison, "one of the premier day spas in Manhattan, and for several years had been its star cosmetologist." [Page 10.] "As always, she was dressed in casual elegance; today it was a butterscotch cashmere sweater dress topped by a dark brown car coat. A double strand of amber beads and dark brown leather calf-high boots completed the outfit. Looking at her [Morgan] felt like an urchin out of Dickens because [her] ensemble was a New York Knicks sweatshirt over black jeans, and comfortable old black ankle boots." [Page 9.] (I can only conclude that cosmetology is a better-paying profession than I ever imagined.)

Here is Morgan on the men in her life: "'The men in my life are out of town,' I said. Homicide detective Matt Phoenix and his partner were in Washington, D.C., at an FBI seminar, and true crime author Chet Thompson was in San Diego, interviewing a survivor of genocide for the new book he was writing. I had no idea where Philippe Abacasas, the mystery man I thought of as the wild card in my life might be, or if I'd ever see him again." [Pages 5-6.] Philippe is tall, dark, handsome, fabulously rich, perfectly dressed, European. He is a man of many names, mysterious. He has minions. And mummy cases. All three are in love with Morgan but throughout the book she figuratively kicks each one in the teeth and other portions of the anatomy. They don't seem to mind it a bit.

As a mystery, "love you madly" [sic] succeeds well enough for 222 pages, at which point the book quietly and without any fuss begins to fall apart. Morgan dies--or at least she should die if the killer had the commonsense of a salamander. Morgan, of course, does not die. She endures and--what the hey?--is miraculously rescued on page 231. The book doesn't come to a resolution, it just stops. A heavy foot hits the brakes on page 272. A Greek god-in-the-box ties up some loose ends with a neat, Egyptian bow. Morgan has the final, inevitable confrontation with the killer, all alone and vulnerable, as is required by cozy tradition. The killer, rigidly following the traditions of his own caste, does not shoot her full of holes when he has the perfect opportunity to do so. This omission gives the plucky heroine a chance to do what plucky heroines in cozy mysteries always do: survive, triumph and kick the bum where it hurts most. (He is the only man in the book who seems to mind the kicking.)

In the normal course of things, I'd give this soap opera mystery four or even five stars, but soap operas do not lend themselves to satisfactory conclusions and, alas, neither does this book. The ending can only be described as weak and mechanical. This forces me to downgrade "love you madly" [sic], if not necessarily the series to which it belongs, to three stars.