Customer Reviews

Toasting Tina

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

 

 

Jane Stuart, literary agent, meets with her client Nate Barre and Tina Vale, publisher of Corsair Books. Unfortunately Tina wants to make Jane pay. She chooses to do it by canceling Nate's million-dollar contract. Apparently, Jane's husband (now deceased) was Tina's lover before they married. Jane never knew about it. Tina never got over it.

Tina is in town to get an award at the Romance Authors Together (RAT) convention. Tina fails to show up and is found dead in her bath. It appears she committed suicide. She was electrocuted with one of her prized antique toasters. A note was found.

At the same time, there is a cat show at the same Inn. Jane's son Nicholas and nanny Florence are there showing their housecat Winky. Jane makes an appearance to see how they're doing. Things aren't going very well.

Plus the RATs and the cats are not getting along well. Detecive Stanley Greenberg, Jane's boyfriend, has to keep an eye on things and help settle any disputes.

Jane does not believe Tina committed suicide. Stanley finally acknowledges that it appears to have been murder. Bad part is that Jane is one of the suspects.

Fearing this would ruin her business reputation, she decides to try to find the killer before word gets out that she's a suspect. She enlists her assistant, Daniel. They begin interviewing the various parties.

Shelly Adams, Tina's assistant, meets with Jane to provide information about Tina.

As Jane gets deeper into investigating, she finds herself in danger. Can she find out who killed Tina without ending up another victim?

This is the first book I've read in this delightful series. It definitely won't be the last. They have a new fan.

Jane is such a likeable character. She is the type of person you would want to get to know. She is able to stumble onto information in a believable manner. Her literary contacts really helped in this story. Her relationships with the other characters were well written and believable.

I highly recommend this book.

What a wonderful series to curl up with! Winky and Jane are back. Jane is going to a RAT convention and a old "friend" is there to destroy her day! She finds out more than she needs and Vows she could Kill Her! Tina gets toasted by her antique toaster and Jane is suspect along with several others. A great twist at the end keeps this fast paced.
Winky does not win a cat contest, but she is winner in the end! Evan Marshell even inserts reciepes at the back of the book for the Trinidadian nannies recipies she is always cooking,, yummmmm

When literary agent Jane Stuart's client has his million dollar book deal cancelled, Jane pulls out the stops. She demands and finally gets a meeting with publisher Tina Vale. But Tina's motives have nothing to do with the book--and everything to do with Jane. Jane stole Tina's great love and now Tina is getting even. Of course, getting even is something Tina is especially good at and she has enemies throughout the book industry. Since they are at a meeting of Romance Authors Together (RAT), plenty of Tina's enemies are lined up.

When Tina turns up dead, an electric toaster in her bathtub with her, suicide is the first suggestion. But a missing key and a long list of enemies makes murder a more likely prospect. And Jane realizes that she'd better find the killer herself--before word gets around that she is one of the suspects. Jane's investigation takes her through a herd of obnoxious writers, ... publishers, and slimey agents before she starts to get a hint at the truth.

Author (and literary agent) Evan Marshall adopts a breezy and fun style, pokes fun at the romance industry (the RAT meeting seems like the worst of Romantic Times and Romance Writers of America, together), and generally has a good time with this light mystery. Serious mystery buffs may be disappointed at how easy the killer is to identify, but will enjoy Marshall's fast pacing and Jane's inventive detection techniques. TOASTING TINA makes for an amusing and very quick read.

The new publisher and editor of Corsair Books has notified literary agent Jane Stuart that she intends to cancel the house's contract with her client Nathaniel Barre. When Jane insists on a face-to-face meeting with Tina Vale to discuss the contract, Nate insists on being there. To the shock of the agent and the writer they learn that Tina has never even read the book but is paying Jane back for marrying the man she loved.

When Tina does not show up at the awards dinner where she is being honored, the president of Romance Authors together (RAT) goes to her room and finds her body in the bathtub. She left a suicide note but neither Jane nor the police think the death is anything but murder since the key to her room is missing. After solving several homicides Jane is not happy to be a suspect in a murder investigation so she sets out to clear her reputation and very nearly winds up as a second homicide victim.

Even Marshal has written a breezy and entertaining first class cozy that contains a host of suspects who hated the victims and had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the crime. The heroine is a spunky and determined person who is determined to find the killer and she has the intelligence and the moxie to do it. TOASTING TINA is a must read for anyone who loves a good mystery Agatha Christie style.

Harriet Klausner

Within the mystery genre, there are many sub-classifications one of which is covered by the term "cozy." This novel fits the generally accepted classification for a "cozy" as it has minimal violence and the violence happens offstage and is only talked about, not really seen. As opposed to certain authors who detail line by sickening line the violence and the state of the body afterwards. Not the wisest time to eat a snack while you read one of theirs.

Personally, I hate the term "cozy." It brings to mind for me two elderly women sitting by a fire for three hundred pages discussing who might have done the dirty murderous deed by the dark of night. "You know, Thelma," says Elizabeth her flashing needles not missing a stitch, "I never did trust the Vicar. He has such beady little eyes and his forehead always seems to have such a peculiar sheen to it." The fire pops, knitting needles flash, and their cups of tea sit cooling on a low table between them while a cat sits over in the corner licking his paw. "I don't know, Elizabeth. The Vicar is a good man. But, I don't trust that Peters fellow. Always walking around in all types of weather day or night. Not right for a body to be doing that, not right at all."

That it isn't and those aren't the sort of books for me either. Though I suspect more than one of my neighbors has made the same observation about me in the dead of night. But I digress and that is so unheard of in one of my reviews, isn't it? Anyway, if you are still with me, a few years ago I was asked to read an earlier novel in this series by Evan Marshall. For those that don't know, the author is famous for his book series, "The Marshall Plan for Writing" and has quite a few interesting articles on writing in various major magazines. The one sin that I am guilty of in my own attempts to write and publish, is that I spend way too much time reading everyone else's work and not nearly enough time on my own. But, when I had a chance to read Evan Marshall's novel I was intrigued and couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, that feeling does not extend to this novel, which could easily be the weakest of the series to date.

Picking up shortly after the events in "Icing Ivy" the series centered around agent Jane Stuart and family continues. This time, Jane must, while attending the Romance Authors Together (RAT) conference, meet with Tina Vale, the new vice president of Corsair Books. Tina got where she got the old fashioned way and she could be the most hated person in publishing today. For some unknown reason, she hates Jane Stuart and to punish her, she is voiding the contract between Nathaniel Barre, a rare undiscovered talent who Jane represents, and Corsair Books. She does not want the first manuscript that Corsair won after a furious bidding war before she took over and is dumping the book as well as verbally trashing it and the author. The financial loss for the author and Jane is staggering as well as the knowledge that this will damage the author's career and Jane's reputation. Then there is the question left unanswered-why does Tina hate Jane so much?

While a cat show in which "Winky" the family cat is entered goes on as well as the romance authors convention (both of which provide drama for secondary storylines) Tina lays emotional waste to a number of people in her typical bulldozer fashion. When she is subsequently found dead, shortly after dropping one heck of a hateful speech on Jane, electrocuted by an antique toaster that was to be part of her collection, the cast of suspects is huge. Unfortunately, news of Jane's personal situation, and their confrontation make Jane the prime suspect, something her reputation and her company can't afford. Therefore, knowing who most of her fellow suspects are, she begins making the rounds asking questions that at least one person, the killer, doesn't want answered.

Everyone returns again in this installment, as Jane deals with being a suspect and the hardships every agent must endure. As in other books in this series, one reads this novel primarily for entertainment in trying to figure out which real life person the author might be commenting on. Unlike others in this series, the identity of the killer is telegraphed very early to the reader this making Jane play catch-up to reader expectations throughout the work. As such, the read while very fast at 211 pages, is somewhat unsatisfactory, as it does not have any twist or really unexpected surprises. Instead, it reads very formulaic as if it has been done over and over again and in some ways, it has as it follows his blueprint for developing a novel for publication.

Still, the novel and the series overall is worth reading for the humor. Humor that will appeal significantly more to those who pursue writing as a calling or a career. In this novel, Evan Marshall reminds one of how to behave in the agent/writer relationship as well as making it extremely clear what not to do. While this novel is weaker than earlier novels in the series, the formula still works for those still inclined to pursue it.

Book Facts:

Toasting Tina: A Jane Stuart and Winky Mystery
Evan Marshall
Kensington Books
www.kensingtonbooks.com
2003
Hardback
ISBN# 0-7582-0226-1
$22.00


Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

I have no objections to mysteries being classified as "cozies." Whatever its ultimate origins, the genre crystalized into form in Britain and the US with the adventures of the formidable Misses Marple and Silver. Neither do I object to the all-but universal plot of the modern cozy: intrepid heroine (1) stumbles over a murder victim, (2) decides that only she can solve the case, (3) enlists the aid of friends, (4) dates/is married to/feuds with a policeman who is suffering from a terminal case of loose lips, (5) gathers evidence by means of assorted misdemeanors and felonies--all to be dismissed in the end as mere foibles, (6) stumbles on the identity of the killer, (7) confronts same unarmed and alone in some lonely place, (8) listens to an aria worthy of Verdi or Puccini in which the killer explains why he or she dunnit before he or she (9) attempts to do away with the heroine, (10) unsuccessfully. I am an opera fan, after negotiating the story lines of Verdi's "Il trovatore" or Wagner's "Ring," I regard any mystery plot as a model of serene lucidity.

The sheer predictability of a cozy mystery plot is, in fact, its greatest strength. For upon these familiar bones, clever and talented writers have rung an immense variety of changes with wit, sharp dialogue, interesting insights, obscure lore and lovable looniness. The cozy mystery is the novelistic equivalent of the sonnet form in poetry.

Then we mystery readers must come, like chimney sweeps, to dust in the form of this book, "Toasting Tina." I find that of the six posted reader reviews, four have assigned the highest rating, five stars. What were they thinking of?

This is one of the most cynical books I have come across in a long time, right up there with rock star tell-all biographies or ravings such as "Holy Blood and Holy Grail." If you disagree with my finding of cynicism, then consider the implications of the title, "Toasting Tina" and, for that matter, the titles of the other books in this series.

This is a book designed to accommodate the basic cozy plot in the minimum acceptable number of pages. The cookie-cutter characters lack the depth of a sheet of paper. Tina is the designated odious person. Florence is the Trinidadian earth mother. Winky, the cat, is no more than a wind-up toy. The heroine's son is not even that much. Salome and Bertha are each exactly the same character, the overbearing romance author. Jane, the heroine, has no inner life at all, no concerns except devoting herself to solving the mystery. She is supposed to be a high-powered literary agent, but she is remarkably casual, even slipshod about it. All the wit of the book is to be found in its title. The dialogue oscillates between banal depths and barely serviceable heights. The climax of the story is such a brazen bit of airy hand-waving that the author doesn't even try to justify it with rational explanation.

Cozies are literary snack food, but there are some truly delicious snacks out there. This one is a week-old soda cracker found in a dumpster.

One star.

From Library Journal:
Series sleuth/literary agent Jane (Icing Ivy) attends a romance authors' convention and a cat show conveniently held at the same hotel. Longtime rival Tina is also there, and as new vice president for a publisher, she intends to cancel the lucrative contract of Jane's client. Someone kills the woman shortly after her revelation, so suspicion falls on Jane. For all collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.