In the 8th installment of the Dead-End Job Mystery series by Elaine Viets, we've found Helen working as a gopher for the stylist to the stars and regulars in Killer Cuts. While Helen prepared for her own wedding, she helped Miguel Angel with the wedding details for Honey and King Oden's wedding. ...
I won this book, and I'm so glad. I've read several of the Dead-End Job Mysteries, both before and after this episode, but I'd missed this one---and I'd missed an important element in the overall arc of the series. (Shouldn't do that!) In this episode, Helen Hawthorne works at a high-end used mos...
This is the 11th book in the Dead-End Job Mystery series. This time Helen & Phil have two cases to solve. One case involves murder of an older man by his younger wife. The case involves smuggling aboard a private yacht. Phil goes undercover to catch the young wife. Helen goes undercover on the ya...
Thoroughly enjoyed it. A fun read as well as a very well written, carefully thought out message concerning a very serious topic. Viets hit the nail on the head (as she always does) with her criminal characters in this one, as well as with the nutty ones. I appreciate the way she tied in periphera...
Josie Marcus, mystery shopper, becomes involved in a murder investigation when she discovers the body of a mean-spirited woman from her high-school days and a favorite teacher from that time is arrested for murder. I enjoyed reading about Josie as she follows her suspicions and copes with her da...
Another entry in a solid series about a single mom who serves as a mystery shopper to make ends meet and solves murders in the process. Viets's dialogue is occasionally painfully expository, and the first few chapters suffer from this, but the conversations are more natural by the end. Her charac...
I love Elaine Viets' cozy mysteries, and this one is no exception. #8 in the Josie Marcus "Mystery Shopper" series, this one finds Josie trying to prepare for her wedding - which can only come off without the proverbial hitch if Josie can manage to find the killer who murdered her prospective gr...
Elaine Viets has kept her Dead-End Job series going strong by focussing on the secondary characters that we, as readers of the series, have come to love. Catnapped is the dual story of a ransomed show cat that has Helen working in a cattery shampooing, conditioning and brushing the fur of pampere...
From the Agatha Award-Winning Author of Dying In StyleEvery job has its pluses and minuses. Josie Marcus gets to shoe-shop-but she also must deal with men like Mel Poulaine, who's too interested in handling women's feet. Soon Josie's been hired by Mel's boss to mystery-shop the store, but one ste...
Helen has a new job "off the books" at Page Turners bookstore in Fort Lauderdale...until the owner is murdered. But since the arrogant Page Turner III had so many enemies, Helen will have to read between the lines to uncover the truth about a clever killer.
Helen Hawthorne's new job at a bridal salon becomes downright funereal when a bride-to-be's mother is murdered. Now, Helen must find the killer before this turns into another dead-end position for her-literally.
While making the best of her new telemarketing job, Helen Hawthorne thinks she hears a murder on the other end of the line-and must avoid a close call with a killer.
Mystery shopper Josie Marcus's report about Danessa Celedine's exclusive store is less than stellar, and it may cost the fashion diva fifty million dollars. But Danessa's financial future becomes moot when she's found murdered, strangled with one of her own thousand-dollar snakeskin belts-and Jos...
Once on the fast track to success, Helen Hawthorne is now going nowhere fast. She traded in her chic life for a shabby one. And now she's on the fun, jumping from city to city and dead-end job to dead-end job, trying to stay one step ahead of her past...After two weeks as the new salesclerk at ...
Someone has killed Halley Hardwicke, the hot young designer of thousand-dollar Italian silk scarves, in the mall parking lot-and police have their eye on Jake, the husband of Josie's best friend Alyce. The couple lived near the wrap maven, but it seems Halley and Jake were a little too neighborly...
Helen Hawthorne has a knack for keeping a low profile. But in South Florida, it's going to get a lot harder to fly under the radar... Working at Sybil's Full Moon Hotel in Fort Lauderdale keeps Helen safe and sane. But when a maid is found dead in a Dumpster, those days just might be over. Dead ...
#3 in the Francesca Vierling series. Author Viets dedicated the latest entry in her Mystery Shopper series to her grandmother, Frances Vierling, so we know where our protagonist's name came from. Once again, Viets' love and knowledge of St. Louis comes through and makes the rudimentary mystery se...
After all those interviews, she had no idea who’d poisoned Annabel. Did Miranda kill the artist because she’d had an affair with Lita? Were Annabel and Lita lovers? Helen didn’t know, but that sensuous nude of Lita proved Annabel knew Lita very well indeed. Lita hid the pa...
Indelicato was waiting for me when I came home from work. She handed me what looked like an undersized white speaker. “What’s this? “A baby monitor. The batteries are new. Mrs. Geimer loaned it to me.” “Mrs. Geimer is eighty-six. Why does she have a baby monitor?” I said. “For when her great-gran...
Helen peered through a slit in the plywood and watched the gorgeous, glowing green show high on an electrical pole near the Coronado. Sparks in shades from tender lettuce to bright lime shot straight up. Then there was an eerie green glow.Suddenly the lights went out.“Transformer blew,” Margery s...
The display shelves looked like they’d been beaten with chains—and so did the mannequins. One fellow with waves of yellow plaster hair had a chipped nose. Gray trails were worn into the navy carpet. Two dusty holiday wreaths did nothing to spread Christmas cheer. “It’s sad to see the Vandeventer ...
The room was flooded with sunlight and the tall orange and yellow canna flowers outside the window made it look like it was on fire. Now it was Alexa’s turn to ask, “Are you okay?” “No,” Helen said. “Seraphina announced that a million-dollar waterco...
Helen kissed Phil good-bye in the parking lot at Fantastic Fitness and slid out of his Jeep, gym keys in her hand. Even the sun isn’t up yet, she thought as she made her way to the front door. But the gym members were. The door was blocked by bodies. Some were thick with muscle, others larded wit...
Thunka. Thunka. The music was loud, fast and hard, like bedsprings rock ing. Am I thinking about bedsprings because I’m getting married, Helen wondered, or because I’m at a strip joint?King’s Sexxx was as sleazy as its name. The shabby pink stucco building was striped with rust stains. It squatte...
Only rags and patches of snow remained. People packed up their parking-place markers, the broken lawn chairs and death’s head signs. They put away their anger, too. Janet even smiled at Melanie, but the Ladue-ite ignored her, preferring to nurse her grudge. Maybe Melanie would make a good city wo...
Most of our department was already in the bar at Harper’s getting plastered. Believe me, they weren’t celebrating Vicki’s promotion. They weren’t holding a wake, either, although their hopes were dead. This was survival time. The men eyed each other warily, like dogs about...
Marshall Noote was used to delivering bad news. He told parents when an unruly child broke his arm running on the pool deck. He asked obstreperous club members to leave the Pink Parrot bar. He escorted freshly fired employees to their cars, then posted their photos in the gate house, so they coul...
For music, we had the shriek and wail of sirens. Yellow police-line tape festooned everything like some failed festive decoration. The T-shaped alley behind the Casa Loma was blocked at all three entrances, by what seemed to be every police car, marked and unmarked, in St. Louis. There was even a...