Triple Threat

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic book!
Review: I always grab up any book I can find by Elizabeth Dearl. She's a fabulously talented writer with a unique style and an engaging voice. Her latest, Triple Threat, is a real treat. This book contains not one, but two mysteries starring the fun and outrageous amateur sleuth/ mystery writer Taylor Madison and her cute ferret, Hazel. Set in the colorful small town of Perdue, Texas, both stories are slyly humorous, intriguing and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. I just love all Ms. Dearl's quirky characters. They are so real I feel I know them. In the first story, a novella entitled 'Buyer's Remorse', Taylor temporarily moves in with her friend, Paula, to help her clean out and repair her recently- purchased, run down and potentially haunted house in the country. Is the house truly haunted or is the "ghost" an alive and well person with an ax to grind? The second story, novel three in the series, 'Triple Threat,' involves a fascinating mixture of ingredients-- triplets who hate each other, a tornado, an amateur tornado hunter, a funeral, a bizarre will-- that cook up into one complex, outrageous and suspenseful mystery. No way will you guess the ending of either of these stories.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading!!!
Review: In this, Elizabeth Dearl's third Taylor Madison mystery, we find ourselves pulled even deeper into the lives and loves of the inhabitants of the small town of Perdue, Texas. All our favorite characters are still there, continuing to tickle us with their unique quirks and charms, but new characters take center stage bringing with them personal histories and experiences that pull us immediately into a hotbed of mystery and intrigue. A dead father's simple wish to reunite his triplet daughters becomes increasingly more complex until Taylor, her handsome sheriff lover, Cal, and the town in general, find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery as frightening and unpredictable as the tornado that pays Perdue a destructive visit.

To add to the total enjoyment of this novel, the publisher has included a short novella written by Dearl entitled Buyer's Remorse. This gem of a read finds Taylor helping a friend move into a newly purchased, dilapidated house. There's mystery and excitement aplenty, with ghostly visits and even a treasure. Taylor's side-kick, her pet ferret named Hazel, plays an integral role in the solution of this engrossing short mystery.

Triple Threat, like Dearl's previous Taylor Madison mysteries, Diamondback and Twice Dead, is completely absorbing. I cannot praise the characterization and writing style enough. The author blends her personal expertise in forensics, investigative procedures and police work with a uniquely witty dialogue and description to produce a tantalizing blend of intrigue, romance and excitement that's truly unforgettable. If you haven't yet read a Taylor Madison mystery, do yourself a favor and pick one up now.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Romantic Mystery!
Review: Triple Threat begins with a novella called Buyer's Remorse (app. 125 pages) and then flows into the main story. Buyer's Remorse is about Paula, Lester's widow and survivor of domestic abuse. She has been working hard at putting her past behind her and is the police dispatcher. However, when she buys the old Fisher place, she immediately regrets it and calls on Taylor to help her out. Turns out that Abraham & Violet Fisher's house is beautiful, but has been let go for a long time and is really run down. Still, Taylor knows that they can set it to rights if they work at it and so they both dive into cleaning and sorting and rewiring the electricity. The last thing they need is Abraham's ghost showing up to scare them to death. As scraps of Abraham's journal show up, discovered who knows where by Hazel, Taylor's pet ferret, Taylor & Paula discover that Abraham regrets murdering someone during the Great Depression. But who? And why? Is Abraham's ghost really haunting the house or is the specter all too human and looking for some long-lost treasure?

In Triple Threat, Taylor is saddened to hear that Hank Barton of Hope's Feed & Hardware has passed away. Hank was the first one to welcome Taylor into Perdue and let her stay in the apartment above his store for free until she had the means to move out. He was survived by his daughters: Lily & Rose who had just moved back to town a year or so ago. Lily ran a flower shop, Rose a secondhand clothing store and Rose's husband, Justin, took over the hardware store. Taylor was pretty good friends with Rose and was shocked to hear that the twins were actually triplets and that they had another sister out there somewhere named Iris. Taylor was even more surprised at the sisters' reaction when Hank's will was read. Turns out Hank wanted his girls to be reunited more than anything so he put a codicil in his will that would give all of his property to the NRA if the girls didn't spend one year living under the same roof together. From the way Rose & Lily reacted, you'd think that they hated Iris. But why?

When Iris showed up a couple of days later, Taylor wasn't surprised that she looked just like her sisters, but she was surprised at how many accidents happened to her. Iris received a death threat, almost drowned in the lake, and then went missing in a freak tornado accident. Who wanted her dead? Taylor wasn't sure if anything was deliberate, but she was too busy trying to keep Cal from blowing a fuse over the new Citizens' Police Academy that Billy, a brand new deputy and Bo, City Councilwoman, had cooked up between the two of them. What with the triplets' weird behavior, townspeople learning to shoot, a grieving mother, and a bout of the flu, Taylor has her hands full trying to solve this mystery!

This is third book in the Taylor Madison series (and first short story?) and it is just as fabulous as the first two. Dearl has a lovely, smooth writing style and knows how to pace her stories perfectly so that the reader is never bored, but the endings don't come up too quickly. Her characters are very memorable and I just get a kick out of all of the small town people in this book because I have met people just like them. All of Dearl's books are well worth reading and the extra cost associated with the books (or you can buy them for a fraction of the cost in ebook format). If you love mysteries, you will thoroughly enjoy this series! I can't wait for the next one to come out!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Romantic Mystery!
Review: Triple Threat begins with a novella called Buyer's Remorse (app. 125 pages) and then flows into the main story. Buyer's Remorse is about Paula, Lester's widow and survivor of domestic abuse. She has been working hard at putting her past behind her and is the police dispatcher. However, when she buys the old Fisher place, she immediately regrets it and calls on Taylor to help her out. Turns out that Abraham & Violet Fisher's house is beautiful, but has been let go for a long time and is really run down. Still, Taylor knows that they can set it to rights if they work at it and so they both dive into cleaning and sorting and rewiring the electricity. The last thing they need is Abraham's ghost showing up to scare them to death. As scraps of Abraham's journal show up, discovered who knows where by Hazel, Taylor's pet ferret, Taylor & Paula discover that Abraham regrets murdering someone during the Great Depression. But who? And why? Is Abraham's ghost really haunting the house or is the specter all too human and looking for some long-lost treasure?

In Triple Threat, Taylor is saddened to hear that Hank Barton of Hope's Feed & Hardware has passed away. Hank was the first one to welcome Taylor into Perdue and let her stay in the apartment above his store for free until she had the means to move out. He was survived by his daughters: Lily & Rose who had just moved back to town a year or so ago. Lily ran a flower shop, Rose a secondhand clothing store and Rose's husband, Justin, took over the hardware store. Taylor was pretty good friends with Rose and was shocked to hear that the twins were actually triplets and that they had another sister out there somewhere named Iris. Taylor was even more surprised at the sisters' reaction when Hank's will was read. Turns out Hank wanted his girls to be reunited more than anything so he put a codicil in his will that would give all of his property to the NRA if the girls didn't spend one year living under the same roof together. From the way Rose & Lily reacted, you'd think that they hated Iris. But why?

When Iris showed up a couple of days later, Taylor wasn't surprised that she looked just like her sisters, but she was surprised at how many accidents happened to her. Iris received a death threat, almost drowned in the lake, and then went missing in a freak tornado accident. Who wanted her dead? Taylor wasn't sure if anything was deliberate, but she was too busy trying to keep Cal from blowing a fuse over the new Citizens' Police Academy that Billy, a brand new deputy and Bo, City Councilwoman, had cooked up between the two of them. What with the triplets' weird behavior, townspeople learning to shoot, a grieving mother, and a bout of the flu, Taylor has her hands full trying to solve this mystery!

This is third book in the Taylor Madison series (and first short story?) and it is just as fabulous as the first two. Dearl has a lovely, smooth writing style and knows how to pace her stories perfectly so that the reader is never bored, but the endings don't come up too quickly. Her characters are very memorable and I just get a kick out of all of the small town people in this book because I have met people just like them. All of Dearl's books are well worth reading and the extra cost associated with the books (or you can buy them for a fraction of the cost in ebook format). If you love mysteries, you will thoroughly enjoy this series! I can't wait for the next one to come out!