<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: So-So Series
Review: At Carlton Central School parents like Molly Masters participate in a fund-raiser. Molly and six other people are going to dress as clowns, disrupting a beautiful woman singing a torch song as one of the festivities to raise money. At the dress rehearsal, the clowns wait in the wings for a magician to finish his act when one of them shoots and kills Corrine, a high schoolteacher. Molly, an eyewitness to the event, is the only clown not under suspicion because someone can state where she was during the shooting. Molly learns that several of the suspects have motives to want the teacher dead including a former lover and the mother of the student she was having an affair with despite the rules. Having solved homicides in the past, Molly decides to do her own brand of investigating that places her in jeopardy from an individual who wants the killer's identity to remain anonymously hidden behind greasepaint. In Leslie O'Kane's fictionalized school, the parents and the administration seem more dangerous than the students are as violence permeates the system. While not realistic, it allows for escapism from the real world. WHEN THE FAX LADY SINGS is an intriguing novel that is characterized by Ms. O'Kane's distinct style of humor. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: A humeous amateur sleuth mystery
Review: At Carlton Central School parents like Molly Masters participate in a fund-raiser. Molly and six other people are going to dress as clowns, disrupting a beautiful woman singing a torch song as one of the festivities to raise money. At the dress rehearsal, the clowns wait in the wings for a magician to finish his act when one of them shoots and kills Corrine, a high schoolteacher. Molly, an eyewitness to the event, is the only clown not under suspicion because someone can state where she was during the shooting. Molly learns that several of the suspects have motives to want the teacher dead including a former lover and the mother of the student she was having an affair with despite the rules. Having solved homicides in the past, Molly decides to do her own brand of investigating that places her in jeopardy from an individual who wants the killer's identity to remain anonymously hidden behind greasepaint. In Leslie O'Kane's fictionalized school, the parents and the administration seem more dangerous than the students are as violence permeates the system. While not realistic, it allows for escapism from the real world. WHEN THE FAX LADY SINGS is an intriguing novel that is characterized by Ms. O'Kane's distinct style of humor. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: So-So Series
Review: Now that I've finished the series, I'm disappointed it wasn't as promising as the first book, but not nearly as bad as the second. Molly is just plain unlikable. She's nosy and annoying, and it's a wonder Tommy hasn't just thrown her in jail already. There's no reason whatsoever for her to be sticking her nose into these murders and putting herself into dangerous situations, and the author's done a terrible job at showing us her motivation for doing so. Instead she's just made her come off as simply meddlesome and stupid. Also, for a series, it's disappointing that the secondary characters haven't been more developed. In the six years the series has spanned, we barely know her best friend Lauren. Jim is just kind of there. And with all they've been through, you'd think by now Stephanie could've been softened just a bit and made a bit more human, instead of continuing to be such an overblown adversary. Ms. O'Kane has good potential for a well-written series, but she really needs to work on character development. Oh, and she needs to cut her use of the word "trot" -- no one "trots" around as much as Molly and her friends and family do.
<< 1 >>
| 
