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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fine small town cozy, November 7, 2003
After she graduated high school Skye Denison couldn't wait to get away from her small Illinois hometown of Scumble River. The only reason she moved back was because her fiancé dumped her, she lost her job and her credit cards were maxed to the limit. The townsfolk have given her a second chance and she has made a place for herself as the school district psychologist and part-time homicide solver. She is seriously involved with Simon Reid, the town coroner and funeral director who has finally realized that if he wants Skye in his life, he has to come to terms with her investigations. His resolve is severely tested when Skye goes over to Barbie's house to back up the merchandise she ordered at a neighborhood party and finds her hostess and her husband Ken murdered. Naturally she wants to find out who the killer is and many people, including the sheriff ask her to look for clues. Her mind is not totally on the case because Simon's estranged mother comes to town and maneuvers herself into Skye's home and life. Fans of small town cozies are going to have a good time reading MURDER OF A BARBIE AND KEN. Between dealing with her boyfriend's mother, tracking down a killer, taking care of her students and trying to find some private time to spend with Simon, the beleaguered heroine does not have time to breathe. Denise Swanson has written a clever, well thought out mystery that is almost impossible to solve, but it is the heroine that makes the novel. Harriet Klausner
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mattel Murders, April 5, 2004
This is a fun little lite cozy murder mystery, offering insights such as this father-daughter advice from 30-something School Psychologist Skye Denison's dad: You only need 2 tools, WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape. Anything more complicated than that, call me. And here's a fun flashback from Skye's Funeral Director Beau's Mom, Bunny: In the 60s, we took acid to make the world weirder. Now the world is weirder than we can handle, and we take Prozac to make it normal. The plot and pace are perky. The style's breezy. If you live in small town, or used to, you KNOW some of these characters! /TundraVision, out of a farmland village of about 900 souls in the Illinois heartland.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A well-crafted mystery with some humor, February 19, 2004
This is my first reading of a Scumble River mystery, so I am stepping into the continuing saga of Skye Dennison, Illinois School Psychologist and Detective, several books into the series. Denise Swanson isn't likely to end up on my very favorites list, but I will read more in this series. She put together a pretty good mystery plot, developed some characters of interest that you care about, and threw in some humor. I'm not sure why she managed to annoy some of the other reviewers so much (who seem sensitive about her portrayal of small time life), because I didn't find her depiction of it so stereotypical. The plot involves a doctor and his wife who are found murdered by our heroine, Skye Dennison. The wife has a home-based distributorship of gourmet meals and the husband is losing patients (no pun intended) who are upset with the way he treats them (again, no pun intended). Everyone involved is a member (or adjunct member in the case of the womenfolk) of a group that's akin to the Moose lodge. The members rely on this for their social life, so it's a pretty inbred group. Skye is asked by a number of people (including, unbelievably, the police) to nose around and see if she can find out who killed this couple. But first she has to determine why, and if the intended victim was the husband, the wife, or both. The book moved right along, there were some laughs, it held my attention, and the mystery plotting was pretty good. All in all, a four star book -- and not five, because the literary quality just wasn't there, and it wasn't so compelling that I stayed up all night reading it or so funny that I laughed my way through the book.
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