Dead Ringer

Rating:
Summary: Scottoline with Bells On.
Review: Lisa Scottoline's 10th mystery novel featuring a firm of Philadelphia female lawyers is so good that I'm having trouble envisioning how she turns the books out at a rate of roughly one a year.
In any event, the plots just keep on coming and they're all so good that the books are actually worth buying, to re-read and to savor.
This time it's Bennie Rosato (managing and only partner of the firm Rosato and Associates) who has a stalker. Last book featured newest associate Anne Murphy and her stalker. But Bennie soon figures out that her evil twin Alice is back in town, getting ready for round two. And this time she even gets Bennie's beloved golden retriever Bear and manages to do serious damage to Bennie's house. How Bear survives and whether or not the house does is just something to look forward to.
So, Bennie's broke, her house is broken into and she may have to break one of business's credos -- don't dip into your own savings or mortgage to pay employees.
This time the "kids" Mary, Judy and Anne, nurture and tutor their blond mentor -- quite a change of pace, but just what one's come to expect from veteran Scottoline. The character roster is always evolving and the writing is always delicious.
Take the time to see how the twin is caught and rehabilitated, the dog's rescue invites a Navy Seal with a suspicious past in as body guard and the firm staggers under the weight of no revenue -- that is, until Bennie is injured and unable to work at all and the kids are left to run the store.
And, of course, Mary DeNunzio's old-world Italian parents and their neighbors stir the pasta pot, but it's a device used so cleverly that it never gets old.
Novel #10 arrives with bells on. Keep 'em coming Lisa. And congratulations to the new partners.


Rating:
Summary: 'Girl' Attorneys Need To Grow Up
Review: This is a good book in the Rosato series, but please, Ms. Scottoline: write the women attorneys as a BIT more mature than seeming as giggly members of a girls club; and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop using the silly term 'Eek': such an exclamatory should be history once one passes her 11th birthday, and is overused and inappropriate for supposedly savvy, mature, intelligent professional women. They can have their immature and 'girlish'moments, but they are getting to be a childish annoyance at this point... Eek!