Customer Reviews

Terror on Tuesday (Lois Meade Mysteries)

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

 

 

This is the second book of a "day of the week" English cozy mystery series, and I had read the "Monday" book. I thought then that the author showed promise but the book didn't quite deliver, and I have the same feeling about this book. It's actually about a 3 1/2 star book but Amazon doesn't offer that option.

There are so many intriguing things going on early in the book -- including a body found in a suit of armor -- and lots of interesting and memorable characters (not one of those books where you have to take notes to keep track of who is who because the characters are so flat). No, the characterization is good. But somehow the ending fell flat.

The "detective" is working class Lois, married to Derek, with three school-aged children and living in a village in England. She had begun cleaning houses in book 1, and in this book, she's decided to start a cleaning business. In the course of cleaning, she stumbles upon a corpse, and Cowgill, the somewhat mysterious police detective with whom she has a Watergate-Deep Throat sort of relationship (they meet in secret from time to time), asks her to poke around in the course of her work and see what she can find out.

One of the cleaners she's hired makes her a bit nervous, but it's not clear if her fears are justified. Then there's a friend of hers who is being abused by her husband -- and a teenage girl who is mysteriously hospitalized, and her family won't talk about it. How does it all connect? And is something odd going on at the local amateur theater? A second person is found murdered, and Lois fears for her family.

This is a readable book -- and I'll read more in the series -- but I just felt it wasn't a four star book, let alone a five. I hope these books get better as the author gets more experience. As I said, this author definitely shows promise.

This 2nd book in the British village cleaner series lives up to the promise of the first. I enjoy series mysteries as much for the growth and changes in the characters as for the whodunnit aspects, and this series does not disappoint. Looking forward to finishing out the week with Lois and her merry bunch.

This cozy mystery takes place in England. I love the English atmosphere, the pub and all the other British things, the British words and phrases, the teas.

This is a Lois Meade mystery; Lois Meade is the supervisor of a cleaning company that she started. Of course, body or bodies are found, but they are found in the most interesting places and ways. I will not say more, as to not ruin it for those who have not read the book. I will just say that the author was very in clever in that respect.

This is a very clever and interesting mystery. I especially loved the character of Hazel; she seemed to be a very strong and smart, even though young, person. Character development was superb.

I loved this mystery. It is the 2nd Lois Meade mystery. ("Murder on Monday" is the first, and I have a superb, flawless review for that book, also.) There is a mystery for every day of the week, and I look forward to reading the remaining days of the week.

When I read the first book in the series, Murder on Monday, I found it to be lacking a bit in mystery, but I enjoyed the characters so much that I wanted to see where Purser went with them. I also wanted to see if Lois mopped herself into a corner. Having one cleaner constantly stumbling over corpses would be problematic-- just how many people would continue to hire her to clean their houses? I also wondered about Inspector Cowgill insisting on always meeting her in the same place. Lois lives in a small village. No matter how out-of-the-way the meeting place is, sooner or later everyone in the village is going to know what's going on. Purser dealt with both of my questions very well in this second book in the series.

Lois came into a bit of money at the end of Murder on Monday, and she and her family have moved to a different village and instead of a small council house, they now have a much larger one with plenty of room to spread out and still have a place for Lois to set up her own cleaning business. It's not long before she's interviewed applicants and has a crew working for her. One day she decides to take a short break in an old chapel and comes across a body dressed in a suit of armor. Once again, Inspector Cowgill has her searching for clues, and when the murderer almost kills her husband, Lois takes the investigation very seriously indeed.

I like the direction in which this series is going. Purser has an excellent cast of characters to work with, and having Lois run her own cleaning company means that she has more time for investigation and an entire crew of cleaners who can help her search for clues. The mystery didn't flag in this second book; although I guessed quite a bit of what was going on, I still didn't have all the plot threads tied and tidied by book's end.

This is a series that I'll be continuing on with, and I'd suggest it to anyone who prefers good characterization, amateur sleuths and cozy mysteries.

I enjoy murder mysteries, especially of the classic "who-dunnit" type, and the Lois Meade series definitely fit the bill. As a central character she has been very cleverly chosen and well crafted. A misfit who started cleaning houses for extra money in the first book, she is now a successful entrepreneur with a cleaning business, New Brooms, which not only places her in the position of learning things about her clients and their relationships, it allows a whole cast of new characters to aid her in the endeavor, no matter how unwittingly.

The author definitely has a feeling for environment and character. Lois's staff are delightful individuals, each a distinct, three dimensional person. I was especially impressed with her friend, Bridie Reading and her daughter Hazel Reading. They're not simply cardboard cutouts used to fill out the cast, they`re "real" people. The issue of family violence here, why it occurs, why it is perpetuated, and why women often find it difficult to leave, is one that is portrayed very realistically.

Although I enjoyed this book as much as the first, I think it was more due to the relationships among the people than to the smoothness of the plot. The ending seemed a little muddier than the last work, and I felt that some of the plot strands were not as well pulled together at the end. I was left wondering about various individuals and what became of them. It was as though the author had woven together more than one plot to disguise the murderer's identity, but then failed to actually clearly resolve the extraneous plot. Others might disagree however.

enjoyed this book, would recommend this book to anyone who loves mysteries

I loved the setting of this book, in a small village in England. I could "see" the houses and the people. The whole book is very British. This book, the second in the series, was much better to me than the first. I flew through the book this time, savoring the familiar setting and enjoying Lois' new role as an employer. I thought this book was great fun, and had to restrain myself from diving right into the third one - don't want to burn myself out! But I will definitely be reading the rest of this series!

Lois and Derek Meade are a married couple who have been married for seventeen years. Derek, an electrician, is rewiring the Waltonby Pub. Lois is planning to set up a cleaning service and asks family members to suggest a name. One of the children comes up with the excellent idea of the New Brooms.

A customer at the pub, the Major, claims his name is John Todd-Nelson, a deceit, since his name is plain John Smith. His connection to the military is doubtful, too. He likes to talk to young barmaids. Lois, entering a church at Dalling, encounters what seems like a drugged dog and the dead body of the Major suited up in armor. Notifying police authorities, she is persuaded to act as a police informant should she encounter anything unusual in her work. Her relationship with her new business and the cleaners she hires is set forth in a good and interesting way.

A wrinkle in the situation is that the Major's apparel seems to be relevant to the presence of a theatrical venture in a neighboring town. House cleaners and house cleaners-not- hired become actors in the mystery of what comes to be a double murder and other criminal conduct.

Even Derek appears to be a victim when he is struck by a hit and run driver in a big black car. Fortunately, Derek recovers and the police and Lois sort things out in a satisfactory manner in order to make sense of the numerous strange events occurring in Lois's surroundings. Lois Meade is a winning reluctant, amateur sleuth.

(Really 2 and 1/2 stars.) The Lois Meade series has wonderful cover art, but this novel doesn't live up to the promise of its cover. Just as in the first outing of the series, "Murder on Monday," the plot is incoherent and the solution challenges belief--and Lois does very little actual detection. Lois's relationships to her husband and to her police connection fail to ring true. And I wonder about the "lower class" stereotyping.

However, in spite of all the above, Ms. Purser creates a very nice atmosphere apart from the "mystery," and Lois can be amusing in spite or because of all her feistiness. Individual scenes can be quite well observed.

If you are looking for a way to while away a few hours in the atmosphere of an English village, and don't mind the plot and characters which occasionally teeter on the edge of unbelievability, give this series a try. Look elsewhere for a book with a tighter plot, believable action, and a reasonable solution.

Lois Meade is the least likeable character to come into British fiction in a long time. She is combative, unfriendly, unappreciative of her mother, and rude to everyone she meets. She is angry all the time and never pleasant to anyone. The mysteries she solves usually turn out to be accidents or natural deaths, and are easy to figure out. The ony reason to read these books is for the interesting village characters around her, but Lois is certainly the least interesting person in the village.