Toasting Tina

Rating:
Summary: Suspicion falls on Jane...
Review: From Library Journal:
Series sleuth/literary agent Jane (Icing Ivy) attends a romance authors' convention and a cat show conveniently held at the same hotel. Longtime rival Tina is also there, and as new vice president for a publisher, she intends to cancel the lucrative contract of Jane's client. Someone kills the woman shortly after her revelation, so suspicion falls on Jane. For all collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Rating:
Summary: A great cozy mystery
Review: Jane Stuart, literary agent, meets with her client Nate Barre and Tina Vale, publisher of Corsair Books. Unfortunately Tina wants to make Jane pay. She chooses to do it by canceling Nate's million-dollar contract. Apparently, Jane's husband (now deceased) was Tina's lover before they married. Jane never knew about it. Tina never got over it.

Tina is in town to get an award at the Romance Authors Together (RAT) convention. Tina fails to show up and is found dead in her bath. It appears she committed suicide. She was electrocuted with one of her prized antique toasters. A note was found.

At the same time, there is a cat show at the same Inn. Jane's son Nicholas and nanny Florence are there showing their housecat Winky. Jane makes an appearance to see how they're doing. Things aren't going very well.

Plus the RATs and the cats are not getting along well. Detecive Stanley Greenberg, Jane's boyfriend, has to keep an eye on things and help settle any disputes.

Jane does not believe Tina committed suicide. Stanley finally acknowledges that it appears to have been murder. Bad part is that Jane is one of the suspects.

Fearing this would ruin her business reputation, she decides to try to find the killer before word gets out that she's a suspect. She enlists her assistant, Daniel. They begin interviewing the various parties.

Shelly Adams, Tina's assistant, meets with Jane to provide information about Tina.

As Jane gets deeper into investigating, she finds herself in danger. Can she find out who killed Tina without ending up another victim?

This is the first book I've read in this delightful series. It definitely won't be the last. They have a new fan.

Jane is such a likeable character. She is the type of person you would want to get to know. She is able to stumble onto information in a believable manner. Her literary contacts really helped in this story. Her relationships with the other characters were well written and believable.

I highly recommend this book.


Rating:
Summary: breezy and entertaining first class cozy
Review: The new publisher and editor of Corsair Books has notified literary agent Jane Stuart that she intends to cancel the house's contract with her client Nathaniel Barre. When Jane insists on a face-to-face meeting with Tina Vale to discuss the contract, Nate insists on being there. To the shock of the agent and the writer they learn that Tina has never even read the book but is paying Jane back for marrying the man she loved.

When Tina does not show up at the awards dinner where she is being honored, the president of Romance Authors together (RAT) goes to her room and finds her body in the bathtub. She left a suicide note but neither Jane nor the police think the death is anything but murder since the key to her room is missing. After solving several homicides Jane is not happy to be a suspect in a murder investigation so she sets out to clear her reputation and very nearly winds up as a second homicide victim.

Even Marshal has written a breezy and entertaining first class cozy that contains a host of suspects who hated the victims and had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the crime. The heroine is a spunky and determined person who is determined to find the killer and she has the intelligence and the moxie to do it. TOASTING TINA is a must read for anyone who loves a good mystery Agatha Christie style.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Winky is back with Jane and Twinky!!
Review: What a wonderful series to curl up with! Winky and Jane are back. Jane is going to a RAT convention and a old "friend" is there to destroy her day! She finds out more than she needs and Vows she could Kill Her! Tina gets toasted by her antique toaster and Jane is suspect along with several others. A great twist at the end keeps this fast paced.
Winky does not win a cat contest, but she is winner in the end! Evan Marshell even inserts reciepes at the back of the book for the Trinidadian nannies recipies she is always cooking,, yummmmm

Rating:
Summary: Winky is back with Jane and Twinky!!
Review: What a wonderful series to curl up with! Winky and Jane are back. Jane is going to a RAT convention and a old "friend" is there to destroy her day! She finds out more than she needs and Vows she could Kill Her! Tina gets toasted by her antique toaster and Jane is suspect along with several others. A great twist at the end keeps this fast paced.
Winky does not win a cat contest, but she is winner in the end! Evan Marshell even inserts reciepes at the back of the book for the Trinidadian nannies recipies she is always cooking,, yummmmm

Rating:
Summary: Light and frothy mystery
Review: When literary agent Jane Stuart's client has his million dollar book deal cancelled, Jane pulls out the stops. She demands and finally gets a meeting with publisher Tina Vale. But Tina's motives have nothing to do with the book--and everything to do with Jane. Jane stole Tina's great love and now Tina is getting even. Of course, getting even is something Tina is especially good at and she has enemies throughout the book industry. Since they are at a meeting of Romance Authors Together (RAT), plenty of Tina's enemies are lined up.

When Tina turns up dead, an electric toaster in her bathtub with her, suicide is the first suggestion. But a missing key and a long list of enemies makes murder a more likely prospect. And Jane realizes that she'd better find the killer herself--before word gets around that she is one of the suspects. Jane's investigation takes her through a herd of obnoxious writers, ... publishers, and slimey agents before she starts to get a hint at the truth.

Author (and literary agent) Evan Marshall adopts a breezy and fun style, pokes fun at the romance industry (the RAT meeting seems like the worst of Romantic Times and Romance Writers of America, together), and generally has a good time with this light mystery. Serious mystery buffs may be disappointed at how easy the killer is to identify, but will enjoy Marshall's fast pacing and Jane's inventive detection techniques. TOASTING TINA makes for an amusing and very quick read.

Rating:
Summary: Weakest In The Series--Toasting Tina
Review: Within the mystery genre, there are many sub-classifications one of which is covered by the term "cozy." This novel fits the generally accepted classification for a "cozy" as it has minimal violence and the violence happens offstage and is only talked about, not really seen. As opposed to certain authors who detail line by sickening line the violence and the state of the body afterwards. Not the wisest time to eat a snack while you read one of theirs.

Personally, I hate the term "cozy." It brings to mind for me two elderly women sitting by a fire for three hundred pages discussing who might have done the dirty murderous deed by the dark of night. "You know, Thelma," says Elizabeth her flashing needles not missing a stitch, "I never did trust the Vicar. He has such beady little eyes and his forehead always seems to have such a peculiar sheen to it." The fire pops, knitting needles flash, and their cups of tea sit cooling on a low table between them while a cat sits over in the corner licking his paw. "I don't know, Elizabeth. The Vicar is a good man. But, I don't trust that Peters fellow. Always walking around in all types of weather day or night. Not right for a body to be doing that, not right at all."

That it isn't and those aren't the sort of books for me either. Though I suspect more than one of my neighbors has made the same observation about me in the dead of night. But I digress and that is so unheard of in one of my reviews, isn't it? Anyway, if you are still with me, a few years ago I was asked to read an earlier novel in this series by Evan Marshall. For those that don't know, the author is famous for his book series, "The Marshall Plan for Writing" and has quite a few interesting articles on writing in various major magazines. The one sin that I am guilty of in my own attempts to write and publish, is that I spend way too much time reading everyone else's work and not nearly enough time on my own. But, when I had a chance to read Evan Marshall's novel I was intrigued and couldn't pass it up. Unfortunately, that feeling does not extend to this novel, which could easily be the weakest of the series to date.

Picking up shortly after the events in "Icing Ivy" the series centered around agent Jane Stuart and family continues. This time, Jane must, while attending the Romance Authors Together (RAT) conference, meet with Tina Vale, the new vice president of Corsair Books. Tina got where she got the old fashioned way and she could be the most hated person in publishing today. For some unknown reason, she hates Jane Stuart and to punish her, she is voiding the contract between Nathaniel Barre, a rare undiscovered talent who Jane represents, and Corsair Books. She does not want the first manuscript that Corsair won after a furious bidding war before she took over and is dumping the book as well as verbally trashing it and the author. The financial loss for the author and Jane is staggering as well as the knowledge that this will damage the author's career and Jane's reputation. Then there is the question left unanswered-why does Tina hate Jane so much?

While a cat show in which "Winky" the family cat is entered goes on as well as the romance authors convention (both of which provide drama for secondary storylines) Tina lays emotional waste to a number of people in her typical bulldozer fashion. When she is subsequently found dead, shortly after dropping one heck of a hateful speech on Jane, electrocuted by an antique toaster that was to be part of her collection, the cast of suspects is huge. Unfortunately, news of Jane's personal situation, and their confrontation make Jane the prime suspect, something her reputation and her company can't afford. Therefore, knowing who most of her fellow suspects are, she begins making the rounds asking questions that at least one person, the killer, doesn't want answered.

Everyone returns again in this installment, as Jane deals with being a suspect and the hardships every agent must endure. As in other books in this series, one reads this novel primarily for entertainment in trying to figure out which real life person the author might be commenting on. Unlike others in this series, the identity of the killer is telegraphed very early to the reader this making Jane play catch-up to reader expectations throughout the work. As such, the read while very fast at 211 pages, is somewhat unsatisfactory, as it does not have any twist or really unexpected surprises. Instead, it reads very formulaic as if it has been done over and over again and in some ways, it has as it follows his blueprint for developing a novel for publication.

Still, the novel and the series overall is worth reading for the humor. Humor that will appeal significantly more to those who pursue writing as a calling or a career. In this novel, Evan Marshall reminds one of how to behave in the agent/writer relationship as well as making it extremely clear what not to do. While this novel is weaker than earlier novels in the series, the formula still works for those still inclined to pursue it.

Book Facts:

Toasting Tina: A Jane Stuart and Winky Mystery
Evan Marshall
Kensington Books
www.kensingtonbooks.com
2003
Hardback
ISBN# 0-7582-0226-1
$22.00


Kevin R. Tipple © 2005