Customer Reviews

Nursery Crimes (Mommy-Track Mysteries)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Juliet Applebaum is at loose ends in her life. After her daughter Ruby was born, she decided to put her career as a public defender on hold because she wasn't giving enough to either her career or her family. Yet she's restless spending all her time at home with her two year old daughter.

Trying to get Ruby into the best nursery school in Los Angeles doesn't go well. But that night the founder, Abigail Hathaway, is run down by a car. Juliet is positive she knows who the killer is. But when she starts investigating, she finds that it might not be as simple a case as she thought. Does she still remember enough of her training to successfully build a case against the killer?

I enjoyed this debut novel. Juliet is a likable heroine who struggles with her desire to do what's best for her daughter and soon to be born son and the desire to continue a job she loves. Occasionally, she borders on whining, but she also knows she's made the right choice for now. The plotting was good, although I felt Juliet was a little dumber then need be at the end. Still, I only saw the ending coming a few pages before she did.

I'm definitely going to continue to check in on this family and see where they go from here. Ayelet Waldman has the potential for a great series with these characters.

As I am a big mystery fan and almost 9 months pregnant with a toddler at home, I was really happy to bump into this novel. Until I started to actually read it. Juliet is a horrible whiner, her child is an incredible brat, and her husband is almost like wallpaper, just there for background. The solution is obvious, and even so, Juliet still doesn't solve the crime so much as bump into the solution by accident. While she bumbles around, the reader has to listen to her complain about everything she encounters, most annoyingly her weight, which is described as a "leviathon" 170 pounds (yeah, right -- the woman is about to deliver!), and her struggles with being a stay at home Mom. She manages to insult both stay at home moms and working Moms while she's at it, which is quite a trick. And if this isn't bad enough, she is a primer for bad parenting. (My personal favorite parenting moment was when she tried to "persuade" her toddler that she wanted a big girl bed. Anyone who has ever had a toddler knows that way lies madness.)

I read this one in a single gulp and had a blast doing so. Author Ayelet Waldman has created a wonderful new sleuth in Juliet, a stay at home mom with a toddler, a woman dying to go back to work - until she becomes pregnant with her second child and her career plans are put on hold. Resigned to staying at home, Juliet is less than perfect on the domestic front, finding life with a toddler hard to take at times. As Juliet herself says, " I wasn't any June Cleaver. I did all the things mothers aren't supposed to do. I yelled. I was sarcastic. I let her watch TV". Clearly, Juliet needs an outlet besides mothering. Then Juliet's daughter, Rudy ("half adorable..angel, half street urchin from hell") fails to ace the admissions interview at the Heart's Song school. Shortly afterwards, the principal of the school killed and Juliet has a new mission - she decides to solve the crime. The details are what set this book apart from the average mystery - Juliet's frustration living among overly ambitious parents striving to get their toddlers into the best schools, her difficulty balancing her desire for a career with her decision to stay home and her humorous attempts to solve a crime without alienating every "suspect" ( in other words, she isn't the most tactful detective). Waldman catches the subtle nuances of suburban life (albeit suburban Hollywood life) perfectly. I hope to see more from this new author and am looking forward to getting her next book, The Big Nap.

The first in a series of an ex-public defender/now mom who wants to solve murders, the book's author really is an ex-public defender/now mom. But the murders she solves are thru her books. The book was pretty short and a fast read. Characters were believable, and especially the scenes with her little girl were charming. Trying to find out who killed the head of a pre-school her daughter was turned down from is the basic plot. Red herrings seemed obvious, and the book was pretty predictable. Humor was not quite up to the standards of more published authors. I will try her second one, though, before giving up on the series. I think it has good potential.

I hate it when moms get asked the question, "Do you work?" Heck yes! Juliet Applebaum, the heroine of this wonderful series, can add another dimension to her answer ... she's also an (unofficial) private investigator. In this story, Juliet becomes suspicious when the principal of an elitist L.A. nursery school is mowed down in a "hit and run." Braving berserk studio executives, internet intrigue, doubting friends, skeptical L.A. cops (who think stay-at-home moms suffer from a dubious intellect), Juliet solves the crime.

What makes this book so delicious is Juliet's sense of humor and honesty. She freely admits that her daughter can be darn annoying and that she is ambivalent, even resentful, of leaving her job as a Harvard-trained public defender to stay at home with her pre-schooler and soon-to-be born son. She acknowledges the joys of marriage and motherhood, too, but her free and funny expression of competing thoughts is refreshing. The other characters are also very realistic and fascinating (including a Hollywood A-list best friend who has her own motive for undermining Juliet's investigation.) L.A. with its celebrity-worshipping milieu serves as a riveting backdrop for the action.
Although I solved the mystery about a chapter before Juliet did (and I'm no sleuth), I still found the book very much worth reading. Juliet is an immensely likable character and I found myself wishing she were real because I know I would enjoy her company.

An interesting literary aside: Ayelet Waldman, the author, is married to Michael Chabon, acclaimed author of Wonder Boys and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

This is a smart, funny, well-written book. The main character is Juliet Applebaum, a former federal public defender, now a stay-at-home mom, who's married to a screenwriter. She's pregnant with their second child and bored out of her skull, so when the headmistress of a prestigious Hollywood preschool is killed in a hit-and-run on the very day she turns down Juliet's two-year-old daughter for admission, Juliet decides to investigate. Waldman's characters are well-drawn and believable, and her swipes at Hollywood are funny without being mean-spirited. I did figure out whodunnit a chapter or so before Juliet did (which may have been because I recently read another mystery in which a similar character was the culprit), but this was such a good book, I didn't mind. I've already ordered the second book in the series, THE BIG NAP, and can't wait for it to get here.

I recently read an article about the author Ayelet Waldman and her husband Michael Chabon in a book magazine. Although I knew about some of their more recent titles, I wasn't aware that Waldman had written a series of books which she dubbed the Mommy-Track mysteries. Intrigued by the premise of a one time defense attorney, now a stay at home mom and pseudo private eye, I found myself gulping down the pages of the first book Nursery Crimes. Not only did I enjoy this book and recommend it, but I rushed out to get the second book as soon as I finished the first one. Finding a new author is always a pleasure and I expect to continue reading Ayelet Waldman as quickly as she publishes more books in this series or other titles as well.

Rachel has made the decision to be a stay at home

mother after a very demanding career as a defense attorney.

Not entirely happy to be at home she finds sitting in the play

ground boring and now is befuddled by trying to find a pre

school for her 3 year old daughter. But she never thought that

the self assured woman, Abigail Hathaway, who interveiwed them and then rejected them would be dead that night, the victim of a hit and run driver. As Rachel begins to think about the morning they spent with Hathaway and another disappointed couple, she begins to think that the head of a most prestigious per school may very well have been murdered.

Pregnant with her second child, Rachel begins to investigate who could have murdered her. Was it the movie executive whose son was also rejected that day or Hathaway's husband who might inherit millions or the woman's troubled teenage daughter from her first marraige.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it if you enjoy a witty fast paced read. Rachel is a wonderful character

who in the most honest of ways describes not only the perils

of being a stay at home mother but also one who can't help

but butt in when a murder occurs.

Although it has been over 30 years since I was a stay at home mom, Waldman was able to bring me back to that place of diapers and whining. Like the expression, "Been there, done that whileI am happy for the place where I'm now at, it was fun to have a sideline view of Rachel's life and what she did to spice it up in this book.

I was riveted! This book caused me to feel two things I crave from a good read: (1) I never want it to end and (2) I can't stop reading, so it's over way too soon. This plot has more twists and turns than a Brio trainset and no, I didn't guess who done it. I identified with Waldman's Juliet Applebaum, the Harvard law school trained, former public defender turned stay at home Mom -- even though I'm not a Mommy or a lawyer and as far away from Harvard as the Hollywood celebrity star-struck shrink character in the book is from Sigmund Freud. The book has lot of great characters who don't behave in ways you'd expect. There's sex, of course -- real and virtual (I must say I learned a few things about the world of cybersex I didn't expect), all seen through Juliet's wise-cracking sensibility. There is so much packed into this mystery -- it's smart and funny and heartbreaking -- the dialogue is utterly real. This is a Mommy that Ann Lamott could relate to, for a change. Unlike detectives who are so busy tracking down clues they forget to eat, Juliet never misses a chance to eat and never tires of hearing her one-of-a-kind husband tell her "you're not fat, you're pregnant". Juliet is the kind of in-your-face type of detective I get my vicarious thrills from when she confronts the high-and-mighty, all five feet and 8 1/2 months pregnant of her.

Juliet, a Harvard Law School graduate and former corporate
attorney, leaves professional life for the imagined pleasures
of being a stay-at-home mother.
She quickly discovers that it is a full-time, demanding
and unpaid job. Not only does she stink at it, but she's bored
(especially by playing CANDYLAND).
But she finds an interesting pastime as an private sleuth,
balancing investigations with finding good daycare. About 30%
of the novel is devoted to the trials of child-rearing.

Cute mystery featuring Juliet Applebaum, a public defender turned stay-at-home mom. When her young daughter's application to a famous preschool is rejected, Juliet isn't too surprised. When she turns on her TV that night only to discover the school's principal has been killed, however, she is not only shocked, but completely suspicious. Soon she finds herself investigating a few clues, against the advice of all who know her. The clues lead her to a seedy, sleazy Internet newsgroup where she eventually gets herself in deeper than she'd planned to go. Now the suspects are piling up (an angry man whose daughter was also denied entrance to the school? the principal's husband?) and when the cops start to take Juliet seriously, she begins to think she's really onto something. But is she? And, if so, how much risk is this pregnant mom going to take on in pursuit of justice? Waldman is the wife of Michael Chabon, one of my favorite authors, and while her novel isn't "literture" as her husband's often are, this was a book I drank down in one afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed. Am looking forward to Waldman's next Juliet Applebaum mystery, too. Recommended!