Died Blonde: A Bad Hair Day Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Who killed Marla's rival?
Review: Hairstylist Marla Shore finds her rival, Carolyn Sutton, dead in the meter room in back of their strip mall. Her boyfriend, Detective Vail who is a hunk, asks Marla for her help. He feels people will talk to her about this better than they will to him. She is a hairstylist, and they know her. Usually he's telling her to not investigate, so she jumps at the chance to help.

She's also trying to set her mom up with Sam from the hardware store. Marla doesn't like Roger, her mom's boyfriend. Since he's out of town, she works hard to bring her mom and Sam together.

Marla talks to Carolyn's psychic and is told some information about her own family that concerns her. She talks to Carolyn's bingo partner. Marla and her best friend end up visiting a nearby town and meeting with some psychics to gain more information.

Instead of clearing up the details, the waters just get muddier. Plus, a hurricane is bearing down on Florida. Can Marla uncover the truth about Marla's death, as well as some other issues that have come out of her death, as well as keep her own salon working, and keep herself and those important to her safe and healthy?

Things with Vail are heating up, and she has to come to terms with her feelings for him and his daughter. Is she ready to make things more permanent?

I always enjoy books in this series. Marla is a great character. Her salon business brings her in touch with so many people. She is always able to get the dirt that Vail cannot get. The relationship between Marla and Vail is wonderful too. I can't wait to read the next book and see what happens to them.

I highly recommend this book.


Rating:
Summary: Cute, South Florida-based mystery by Cohen
Review: I liked the cute story about a Jewish salon owner sleuth, Marla Shore. The book is descriptive of its South Florida locale, so those who live there or have traveled to the area can identify the roads, places, and towns, and maybe with Cohen's cultural view of the area. Boca Raton, etc.

Marla enjoys many adventures and meets many zany people en route to solving the mystery (which the reader should find out, so I won't go on!). Interwoven into the tale is a love story between Marla and the hunky detective, Mr. Dalton Vail. Part of the story tells about how Marla invites Dalton into her Jewish world, including detailed descriptions of Rosh Hoshannh. Ms. Cohen lovingly details how Jewish Marla's family is.

As a mystery, the book contains some villains and other characters that Marla encounters along the way, descriptively described by Cohen. There are the illegal "French" immigrants. An Irish-Italian chain smoking woman at an Indian casino, and a whole host of others. Ms. Cohen mentions and frames the ethnicity of every character in the book, some positive, some negative. But I'm not sure that really adds to the reality of the story, nor is her skewed stereotyping really necessary for a book for this age group.





Rating:
Summary: Excellent-a hair raising amateur sleuth mystery
Review: When the lights go out during working hours at Marla Shore's beauty parlor Cut'N'Dye, the owner's first thought is that Carolyn Sutton of Carolyn's Hairstyle Heaven is up to one of her tricks. Since Carolyn moved her business into the same shopping center where Marla is located, the newcomer has been playing dirty tricks on her in hopes of stealing or at least reducing her rival's customer base. When Marla goes to her meter room, she trips over the dead body of her competitor.

Marla's significant other Detective Vail heads the investigation. This should help Marla who has publicly announced to her customers that she would kill Carolyn if she was responsible for the outage. Vail does not suspect her, but asks her to help him by talking with people who knew the victim especially her employees. Marla learns that Carolyn had a lot of secrets including being a blackmailer, but who had the greatest motive to murder her remains the prevalent secret.

DIED BLONDE is a hair raising amateur sleuth mystery that also contains a fine romantic subplot between Vail and Shore with her having to decide whether she can fully commit to him and his daughter who she also loves. There are more suspects than Marla has customers so readers and the heroine will wonder who the real killer is. Nancy J. Cohen is a terrific writer who always provides her customers with a stylish tale as the author has done with this fine novel.

Harriet Klausner