Customer Reviews

Working Stiff

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book. It is fast pace and funny. It has a little of everything, drama, romance, suspense. My kind of book.
I love books that get to the point and don't drag on with boring fillers. I also want to be entertained and not bored to sleep. This book met all my needs. Kudos to the author.

The novel opens with a heartbroken Mattie Winston R.N. recently estranged from her husband after catching him cheating with another nurse at the local hospital where they both work. Wanting to hide under a rug but needing income she takes a job as coroner's assistant, a position where she is guaranteed to be spared the stares of the masses. But fate is not content to dismiss Mattie from the public eye. Soon after starting her new job she unexpectedly reencounters her husband's lover, now deceased, the victim of a brutal murder. And Mattie's husband is the prime suspect. Knowing her ex to be a jerk but reluctant to see him as a murderer Mattie goes about accumulating evidence in the hopes of clearing his name. Along the way she finds out that hers is not the only scandal in town as she uncovers the hidden secrets of her co-workers and friends, people whom she thought she knew and understood.

As the heroine was a practicing nurse and employed in an official capacity in the coroner's office she is granted greater credibility as an amateur sleuth. The reader can then gracefully suspend disbelief as the office in which she works acts surprisingly spare of protocol as they zip through what must actually be a rigid codified process of training new employees. Mattie is rather a loose cannon of the kind that I imagine, and hope, is quickly restrained in an actual police investigation.

Playing it loose with police regimens I forgave since this is not a hard-edged mystery, instead meant for the cozy audience as shown by the slapstick/serious portrayal of Mattie herself. The comedy is funny and I enjoyed it but the serious aspects of her characterization never jived for me. So much time in the book is spent telling me that Mattie is emotionally devastated by her husband's cheating, but frankly she never seemed that into him. I never got the sense that they once shared a deep emotional connection, I never learned what exactly went wrong in their marriage, and at a time when she is supposedly healing a broken heart she is head-over-heels lusting over the chief police investigator. So is Mattie heartbroken or moving on? Was she deeply committed to her ex-husband or was he just an interlude? A closer adherence to the actual experience of divorce and infidelity would have deepened the novel, though that approach might have limited the racy bits.

And there are plenty of them. So many that after a few chapters I began to suspect that the title is a saucy double entredre. The novel is a cozy marriage between one of the safely racy Harlequins and a reassuring "the bad guys get it in the end" 1970's TV mystery drama. Mattie Winston is part classic detective with her chutzpah and intelligence and part Carol Burnett as she endures mishap after misadventure. If you are a fan of cozy mysteries and tolerant of A LOT of sexual innuendo then you will probably enjoy the pure escapism this novel provides.

Quirky, keen and not for the faint at heart, Annelise Ryan's debut new cozy mystery series will have readers dying for more!

With an opening line of "I'm surprised by how much the inside of a dead body smells like the inside of a live one.", I knew that I was going to be in for one interesting read. I was not disappointed. Annelise Ryan blends together a hint of the macabre, humor, mystery and one sassy main character to give readers a rather unique cozy mystery. Do be warned that parts of the story are a bit on the graphic side - we are dealing with coroners and autopsies, so could one expect anything less?!

Mattie Winston is our sassy main character. She has recently discovered her husband (soon to be very ex-husband) playing peek-a-boo with a certain part of his male anatomy with one of the hospital nurses where both Mattie and hubby, Dr. David Winston are employed. Needless to say, this went down like a deflated, well.... you know... Mattie quickly moves out, quits her job and moves in with her best friend Izzy, who also gives her a job as deputy coroner. All goes fairly well until Mattie's first homicide case, where she not only loses her panties, but discovers the body is her husband's play thing. What the heck?! It doesn't bind well when Mattie had just so happened been spying on the couple the night before and she had been witness to a very heated argument between the two. David a cheater, but could he possibly be a murderer?

Things only get crazier when Mattie finds herself going head-to-head with Detective Hurley, who takes his job very seriously, and also seems to have a thing for pulling Mattie's strings. The chemistry is an interesting and never dull one, at the very least.

Working Stiff is a hugely entertaining story that will have the reader gripped to the pages, as well as laughing out loud in places. Mattie is a wonderful character who has fairly typical personality traits, that most woman can relate too, however she has highly atypical problems. Her friend Izzy is a hoot and the perfect side-kick to Mattie. Though a bit over the top, this is the perfect story for anyone looking for a fun and relaxing read. To show readers a peek of the brand of humor used by Annalise Ryan, I wanted to share these excerpts from page 111 and page 112. The background is when Izzy suggests that Mattie needs to "freshen herself up" and get a bit of a makeover. Izzy knows the perfect person for the job and sits it up for Mattie. Guess who this perfect person just happened to be?! None other than a professional hair/make-up artist to the dead!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour and a half later, Barbara and I have planned out my entire funeral, including the music, my dress, who will be invited, and which coffin I'll be buried in. I take Barbara's advice and opt for the mahogany box with the blue satin lining. At first I think it makes me look too cold, but once Barbara finishes my make-up and lets me look in a mirror with the blue satin beneath my head, I have to admit it looks quite stunning.

Page 112:

By the time I rise from my stretcher like Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankinstein, I know I'm looking better than I have in a decade or more. I am a woman transformed - perfectly willing to have my hair done for the rest of my life on an embalmer's table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is just a small hint of what is in store within the pages of Working Stiff by Annelise Ryan. I, personally, had a blast reading the story and can't wait to read the next in the "A Mattie Winston Mystery" series, titled Scared Stiff which was released September 1st of 2010.

Working Stiff stars a nurse (Mattie) who has left her career in the hospital to become deputy coroner in a small Midwestern town. She has recently found her husband in a sexual tangle with another nurse (in the OR yet!), and is devastated. THEN the nurse who was with her philandering husband is murdered! Did her husband do it? She's worried because she saw them have a huge fight just prior to the murder. You'll need to be able to suspend belief (Are ORs clean? Can a person become Deputy Coroner without special training, Is it actually possible to lose your panties at a crime scene?...). But the book is fun, and there's plenty of comic relief (if you like slapstick), and a possible love development...Why IS Hurley taking Alison out to dinner? Fun and quick read. I hope this is the beginning of a Mattie series.

A fun new series starring smart and sassy Mattie Winston, a nurse turned assistant medical examiner. The plot is fun, the characters well developed and interesting. I'm looking forward to more of Mattie.

I really like Mattie because she's the every day woman who has to learn a new job rather quickly, deal with her weight and insecurities while trying to solve the murder in a competition with the handsome police detective. I love the characters in this story and I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

Loved this book. Great character development, interesting storyline and lots of laugh out loud humor. Looking forward to more from Annelise Ryan.

Mattie's character is very believable as well as likeable. Her experiences compliment her medical background. Look forward to reading more.

Read Ms. Ryan's debut and came to it without any expectations other than a inexpensive choice from the mystery genre. I got my money's worth and much much more.

Ryan writes with an expertise from her knowledge of the medical field and even the relationships of those that work in that close knit group of medical providers. I enjoyed her protagonist being a woman at a crossroads and making new choices on how to live the rest of her life.

I am a huge Grafton fan and Ms. Ryan reminded me of Grafton's writing and in this reader's opinion was definitely equal to and several incidences surpassed Grafton. I was engaged from the beginning and found it very difficult to put away. I read it with my coffee in the morning, any free time during the day (including potty breaks), snuck a chapter in the car while someone else was driving of course and last night I kept reading until I was done. I ended it wanting more and a bit miffed that I now must wait for another Ryan book.

There were many times that I laugh-out-loud parts of the book. I loved her relationship with her boss/landlord and his partner. This part was one of the strongest similarities to Grafton along with her investigations and interviews with witnesses.

This is a wonderful new author and I so look forward to another book from Annelise Ryan.

This book isn't really as bad as a 3-star review, but it does not quite reach the level of 4-stars.

Mattie is a likeable, down-to-earth character. However, she is just not serious enough for this type of story. As much as the author tries to lighten it up, the story is about the cold-blooded killing of a woman. Sure, the victim is far from being the innocent girl-next-door, but the death of anyone deserves respect, and this book does not give that respect. Mattie's investigation technique also leaves a lot to be desired. While it makes sense to just go talk to people when living in a small town, criminal investigative procedures frown on anyone - even someone who works for the ME's Office - going rogue and handling everything themselves. Mattie gets lucky several times, in finding the people to talk to, getting them to talk to her, and getting the information she needs to point to the next link in the chain.

Overall, this is a cute, lighthearted book. But there was so much more that could have been done to turn Mattie from a 2-diminsional lucky "stiff" to a 3-diminsional professional investigator.