Murder of a Sleeping Beauty

Rating:
Summary: The murder of a beauty queen upsets Scumble Creek
Review: Skye Dennison is called to the gym of Scumble Creek High School by a student. She finds the star of the school play dead on a prop bed used for the production of Sleeping Beauty. Since Wally and Simon want nothing to do with her she is stuck investigating alone, and discovers that the perfect girl is not as perfect as she seemed and finds out a little about the seamier side of the beauty pageant circuit.

The Scumble Creek series is a really enjoyable one. The books are full of eccentric characters and real issues. The mysteries are not terribly difficult but are alot of fun to solve.

Rating:
Summary: The murder of a beauty queen upsets Scumble Creek
Review: Skye Dennison is called to the gym of Scumble Creek High School by a student. She finds the star of the school play dead on a prop bed used for the production of Sleeping Beauty. Since Wally and Simon want nothing to do with her she is stuck investigating alone, and discovers that the perfect girl is not as perfect as she seemed and finds out a little about the seamier side of the beauty pageant circuit.

The Scumble Creek series is a really enjoyable one. The books are full of eccentric characters and real issues. The mysteries are not terribly difficult but are alot of fun to solve.

Rating:
Summary: Sleeping Beauty is found dead. Who could have done it?
Review: Sleeping Beauty is found dead on the stage at the high school. Lorelei Ingels is to be Sleeping Beauty in a play, but she's dead.

Skye has to deal with the morning students and help Chief of Police Walter Boyd discover the murderer. This isn't easy. Wally is upset with Skye. Skye had a crush on Wally when she was 15 and he was 23. They never dated. Recently he felt she betrayed his trust. This was made even worse because his wife, Darlene, betrayed his trust by leaving with another man.

Since Wally is so upset, Skye has to get information for this case through her mom, a police dispatcher, and Simon Reid, coroner and former boyfriend -- not a great situation either.

Lorelei and her sister, as well as Lorelei's best friend are in beauty pageants. The parents are so in to this that there are stories abounding that Mrs. Ingels and Lorelei pulled many pranks so that the competition would be out. Of course, none of the pranks could be proven to have been done by them. Skye takes her 2 nieces to a couple pageants to see things first hand.

This book has many twists. The people are very believable and the book has a true small town flavor. I always look forward to the next book in this series. Can't wait to find out about Skye's next adventures and more about her love life, which is always in flux.

Rating:
Summary: Sleeping Beauty is found dead. Who could have done it?
Review: Sleeping Beauty is found dead on the stage at the high school. Lorelei Ingels is to be Sleeping Beauty in a play, but she's dead.

Skye has to deal with the morning students and help Chief of Police Walter Boyd discover the murderer. This isn't easy. Wally is upset with Skye. Skye had a crush on Wally when she was 15 and he was 23. They never dated. Recently he felt she betrayed his trust. This was made even worse because his wife, Darlene, betrayed his trust by leaving with another man.

Since Wally is so upset, Skye has to get information for this case through her mom, a police dispatcher, and Simon Reid, coroner and former boyfriend -- not a great situation either.

Lorelei and her sister, as well as Lorelei's best friend are in beauty pageants. The parents are so in to this that there are stories abounding that Mrs. Ingels and Lorelei pulled many pranks so that the competition would be out. Of course, none of the pranks could be proven to have been done by them. Skye takes her 2 nieces to a couple pageants to see things first hand.

This book has many twists. The people are very believable and the book has a true small town flavor. I always look forward to the next book in this series. Can't wait to find out about Skye's next adventures and more about her love life, which is always in flux.

Rating:
Summary: a fun read
Review: There are moments in everyone's life when every mistake you've ever made either comes back to haunt you, or else conspires to ensure that you have a very bad couple of days. For Skye Dennison, the school psychologist for Scrumble River, the period covering the murder-investigation of Scrumble River High School beauty, Lorelei Ingels, proves to be exactly such a moment. Since returning home (reluctantly) after having been fired from her first job and being dumped by her rather obnoxious fiance, Skye has managed to find a way to fit in again in her small home town, and to live down her infamous high school valedictorian speech (in which she stated that all the denizens of Scrumble River had small mundane minds). It's not all good news however: her job is a hard and thankless one, where she seems to be doing the work of at least six people, and where she gets very little help or support from school administrators. Add to that the unpleasant fact that Skye has managed to alienate the affections of the two men she has some romantic feelings for, and you have some idea of what Skye's life is like right now!

As "Murder of a Sleeping Beauty" opens, Skye is summoned to the school gym by a hysterical teenager who claims that, "Sleeping Beauty is dead." Inside the gym, Skye finds Lorelei Ingels (popular head cheerleader, Sleeping Beauty in the school's upcoming musical, and regular beauty pageant contestant) onstage seemingly asleep. Except of course that she's not breathing, and that she happens to be a lovely shade of grey-blue. It looks as if Lorelei may have over dosed on something. Afraid that the school may be blamed for Lorelei's death, Skye's godfather (who happens to be president of the school board) asks Skye to investigate. This, Skye is only all too willing to do, but investigating this murder will not be easy going, esp with the sheriff acting really hostile towards her (he's still angry at her for having betrayed his trust in a previous Scrumble River mystery, "Murder of a Sweet Old Lady"). But Skye is nothing if not determined to discover why Lorelei Ingels is dead; why the Ingels family is not cooperating with the police; and why Lorelei isn't even being mourned by her friends.

"Murder of a Sleeping Beauty" is a really fun read. Denise Swanson does a marvelous job of both imbuing the book with that small town atmospheric feel, and of maintaining a light tongue in cheek sarcasm with which she observes the general ineptness of the school administrators, as well as all the string pulling that goes on behind the scenes in small town politics. The Scrumble River mystery series is not a completely light hearted 'cozy' read, but it is an absorbing and compelling one. It is rather fast paced and is filled with character-types that are quirky and recognizable to all of us. I was well and truly hooked. All in all a really worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Some Issues
Review: This was a good book, but again, my favorite book so far is the first one (Murder of a Small-Town Honey), and I haven't read the fourth one yet, so there's hope yet.

During my reading of this book, I felt that Skye didn't really understand teenagers, or was for some reason bias towards those in the book. (Yes, yes, I'm a teen myself!) Anyhow, the storyline, again, didn't intrest me that much. Justin and that girl who's name I can't remember, were more likable in this book than Skye herself. Also, one more thing, through out the book, Skye was asking for too many things! I know it's her job to help the children, but I was annoyed how she would always try to find the principal to request he do something.

Overall, it was good, but I was annoyed by it. The one thing I'm gald about in this book, is that the author didn't kill off the murderer at the end! (It was a nice change!)

-Ater