Rating: 
Summary: Needs a lot of doctoring
Review: An anemic effort from someone who is touted on the cover as a best-selling author. I'd go back and check out the titles that gave her that status instead of reading this book.Very weak characters, an obvious mystery, too-convenient plot devices every other page, cheap shocks that make you feel stupid when you find out what they are, characters that literally fall into the hospital room so they can spill their guts -- or confessions -- to our bed-ridden mystery solver... And someone has the gall to compare her to Miss Marple. (She blushes modestly when they do so.) Search a little farther on Amazon and I'm sure you'll find something that is worth your time. Try Janet Evanovich or Katy Munger. Their stuff will treat you as if you're an adult reader and not a child.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best of the series
Review: Everyone is a little leery of hospitals, but Good Cheer has good reason to make Judith and Renie nervous. Two high profile patients have recently died after fairly routine surgery. Judith needs a hip replacement, and Renie is scheduled for shoulder surgery. The night after their operations, a well known ex football player in the next room dies as well. Since they have nothing to do but think about what's going on, Judith and Renie put their minds to solving the mystery and to find out aabout the other strange things happening at Good Cheer hospital. This is the best that this series has produced in a long time. Hospitals are naturally creepy and this one is really strange. The setting of a hospital isolated after a snow storm really adds to the drama. Enjoy it, I did!
Rating: 
Summary: Give this one a pass...
Review: I always get excited when I seem Mary Daheim's name as the author of a new bed-and-breakfast mystery...or at least I always USED to get excited. "Suture Self" takes place in a hospital--the ultimate bed and breakfast--and is as cutsey and improbable as its title implies. The largest problem is the location, as you might guess: it's difficult to have three murders on your floor, have the various characters wander in your room and confess, and observe the hit and run from your hospital window. It just doesn't work. And the humor that Daheim usually exhibits doesn't work either: it's strained and artificial, filled with weak puns and plays on words. I'm saddened to see Daheim turn out such a weak product: this is a formulaic novel based on her past work but, unlike the hospital in which it is set, the novel is sterile and lacking in credibility and color.
Rating: 
Summary: Probably the weakest....
Review: I read both series written by Mary Daheim and I have to say, right away, that I prefer the Alpine Mysteries to this series, Bed-and-Breakfast. This series tends toward too much silliness at times and there also tends to be too many deaths in each one (Snow Place to Die, for example, was right up there on par with a slasher movie). As well, some of the guests in this series lean toward stereotypical cartoons rather than characters. That being said, this book falls right in line with the others of the series, perhaps a little worse than most of the previous ones. Both Judith and her cousin Renie are in the hospital for operations when a murder occurs, following two suspicious deaths having already taken place. The mystery in this one is fairly easy to solve and the pacing is slow - it would take a really strong writer to make a full-length novel that takes place almost entirely in one hospital room seem exciting. I found myself more interested in the personal progress of Judith's life - will Mike finally find out that Joe is his father, not Dan? How is Gertrude's progress into senility?
I rate this one 2 stars as it is less than average for this series. Have to say that I am more looking forward to the next Alpine mystery much more than the the next one in this series, "Silver Scream."
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Yet!
Review: I was getting slightly bored by her books and debated whether to even buy this one. I'm glad I did. I found it the best yet. I laughed out loud several times over Renie. I mean to me..she is the star of the book. To me this seemed more like her book and it was funnier because of it. If I am ever stuck in the hospital I plan on taking my food with me too!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Yet!
Review: I was getting slightly bored by her books and debated whether to even buy this one. I'm glad I did. I found it the best yet. I laughed out loud several times over Renie. I mean to me..she is the star of the book. To me this seemed more like her book and it was funnier because of it. If I am ever stuck in the hospital I plan on taking my food with me too!
Rating:
Summary: the real mystery is why anyone bought this, ever
Review: I'm not a huge mystery fan but ... I had heard of the author and figured I'd give it a shot. Never again. Mary Daheim's writing style grated on my last nerve. The book lurches between one underdeveloped character after another, all of whom spout incredibly mannered and expository dialogue. One character, talking to her best friend in the whole world, says: "I understand that modern medicine is a mess, but it seems impossible in a country as rich and supposedly smart as the United States that we could have gotten into such a fix." No one - I repeat, NO ONE - talks that way. It's the author's voice ringing out of her character's mouth, as clanging and awkward as a broken bell. The names of some of her characters are ludicrous. This may be a small point, but have you ever met anyone named Torchy Magee? Outside of a ... Mickey Spillane novel, I haven't either. How about Johnny Boxx (with two x's)? Or the talkative Mr. Mummy? I can see where she was trying to amuse, but the names are so ludicrous, they become distractions. You lose the thread of the narrative entirely, thinking to yourself, Torchy? Huh? And then there was the appalling lack of fact-checking. As one reader pointed out, Mary Daheim may not know anything about hip surgery or rotator cuff replacement surgery. My complaint is that she just as obviously knows nothing about Ecstacy. It will not blind you, drive you crazy, or cause you to expire. You cannot kill someone by putting that particular "street drug", as she likes to call them, into a bottle of soda. Cocaine? Yes. Heroin? Yes. It would have been far simpler and much more realistic to have her various characters die of overdoses of drugs that would actually kill them. So why did she choose E as one of the linchpins of her novel? Maybe because of all the negative publicity about it. Maybe she wanted to be topical. She's obviously anti-narcotics, unless they're prescribed by a physician. One character tells us that all she knows about Ecstacy is that it "does terrible things" to you... then proceeds to pop a few Valium later that night when she can't sleep. ... Fans have said this is one of Mary Daheim's weakest works, so maybe I should give her a second chance. I'd be willing to start another book by her... and just as willing to put it down after five pages if it's as horrible as this one was. ...
Rating:
Summary: Not one of her best books
Review: In this entry in Mary Daheim's Bed and Breakfast series, Judith McMonigle Flynn and her cousin, Serena "Renie" Jones, are operated on and hospitalized at the same time. Naturally they are nervous about undergoing surgery, but even more so when they find out that two patients at the Hospital, a baseball star and an actress, died after undergoing minor surgery. They survive their surgeries, but when the patient in the next room, an ex-football player becomes the third victim, Judith and Renie begin to investigate the murders. But when the Jones' car is stolen and Judith's husband, Joe is stabbed, Judith and Renie wonder if they've gotten in too deep.
While I usually enjoy the books in this series, I didn't like this one. Renie is at her worst, literally screaming to get attention. Judith's mother, Gertrude, was also at her most annoying, using Judith's credit card to order things such as pot bellied pigs. As for the murder itself, I found the murderer's motive very weak.
I still recommend this series, just not this particular book.
Rating:
Summary: Patients are dying after surgery, is it murder?
Review: Judith and Renie are at it again. These cousins are a hoot!
Judith is off to the hospital for hip surgery. Renie is having rotator cuff repair. Unfortunately right before they are admitted, they learn that two recent well-known patients didn't make it after they had routine surgery.
Then while they are in the hospital recuperating, the ex-pro quarterback in the next room dies after minor knee surgery. Was he killed?
The cousins begin to look into the deaths at Good Cheer Hospital. This is not easily done. Judith is pretty much bed-bound, so Renie ends up doing a lot of the leg work. Most of the staff won't talk, but they do find a few who will give them a little information. But then most of them mysteriously go on vacation or are transferred.
Plus Renie is not the best patient. She is constantly finding a way to order in better food. Their neighbor across the hall, assists in this activity on a few occasions. Then a snow storm brings the town to an almost standstill. This also means that their husbands can't visit.
The husband of the first woman to die is a reporter. He stops in and chats with the cousins. A few minutes later Renie observes him being hit by a car in the hospital parking lot.
They know someone is up to no good and hope that they can survive while working to uncover everything!
I love this series. These cousins always make me laugh. They get into some of the wildest situations! Judith's husband and her mother are not as prominent in this book. They really add to this series as well. I like how the author can weave the various characters in and out depending on the setting. They still play a part, but maybe not as big.
The author has a real winner! If you are looking for a cozy that you can fly through and enjoy, you've found it!
I highly recommend this book and the entire series!
Rating:
Summary: Mysterious hospital deaths
Review: Judith McMonigle Flynn needs to have a hip replacement, coincidentally at the same time that her cousin Renie is having shoulder surgery. They are a little apprehensive about their admission to Good Cheer Hospital, because there seems to be a rash of deaths of basically healthy people who have recently had surgery at the hospital. There is a rumor of a takeover of Good Cheer and there are plenty of quirky hospital employees as well as relatives of the deceased which gives Judith a long list of suspects. Her husband is working on a case dealing with homeless people and Judith suspects that there is a connection to the case she's working on. Undaunted by her surgery, Judith travels around the hospital in her wheel chair and, as usual, manages to solve the mystery before the police. This is another enjoyable book in the Bed-and-Breakfast series.
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