Service Dress Blues: Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mystery (Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Michael Bowen M.A (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009 | Series: Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mysteries (Book 5)

On the night before the 2008 Army-Navy Game, a midshipman is found stark naked and barely alive in the lobby of a cheap motel near the Naval Academy. The plebe's closest relatives are Ole and Lena Lindstrom, a pair of aging but still scrappy Wisconsin political activists who want lawyer Rep Pennyworth to help them get copyright protection for an audacious package of campaign ideas that put rich and ruthless gambling interests in the cross-hairs. The political neophyte they have in mind as a candidate heads a think-tank at UWM, where she is exploiting for her own political purposes the sensitive issue of domestic violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bowen's convoluted fifth mystery to feature Rep and Melissa Pennyworth (after 2008's Shoot the Lawyer Twice) finds the Milwaukee lawyer and his English professor wife pursuing a couple of cases with a family connection. Rep is doing trademark and copyright work for political activist Ole Lindstrom, while Melissa is investigating the mugging of a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman, found naked and unconscious in an Annapolis, Md., motel, who happens to be Ole's nephew. Meanwhile, the authorities charge Ole's wife, Lena, with attempted murder after someone—Lena claims it was an intruder who entered their house—sneaks up on Ole and whacks him over the head with a skillet. Ole's subsequent murder raises the stakes. Set between December 2008 and May 2009, this up-to-the-minute whodunit is filled with topical allusions that will either amuse or irritate, depending on your politics. The light tone and easygoing dialogue make for a quick read. (Sept.)
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Review

"The light tone and easygoing dialogue make for a quick read." -- Publishers Weekly on Service Dress Blues

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590586670
• ISBN-13: 978-1590586679
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,987,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars amusing lighthearted farcical mystery, September 6, 2009

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Service Dress Blues: Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mystery (Rep and Melissa Pennyworth Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In Milwaukee lawyer Rep Pennyworth and his wife, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee English professor Melissa, are working on separate items. Rep is working on trademark and copyright law for Democratic Party activist Ole Lindstrom; Melissa is looking into the apparent mugging by a woman of Ole's nephew Harald Lindstrom from the U.S. Naval Academy found unconscious in an Annapolis motel the night before the "Game".

The police arrests Ole's septuagenarian wife Lena; who is accused of hammering him on his head with a frying pan. She is charged with attempted murder. She swears she did not bean her husband with a skillet; instead she swears that an intruder knocked him out. Ole is gleeful in spite of the headache as his candidate for Attorney General Veronica Gephardt is running on a domestic violence platform. Soon after that someone kills Ole; and Lena is arrested again this time for murder; Rep represents her.

With events going on in early 2009 playing in the background, the latest Pennyworth thriller (see SHOOT THE LAWYER TWICE) is an amusing lighthearted farcical mystery that is fun to read. The lead married couple is having fun though the stakes change for him with a murder defense and for her with a baseball trivia quiz. Although the prime suspects in the homicide are not just underdeveloped, they seem emaciated when compared with the Pennyworth pair. Still Michael Bowen provides an entertaining who's on first tale.

Harriet Klausner