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Rating: 
Summary: A blushing mystery
Review: Claire and Dan are a couple who will grow on you. Their affection, love and loyalty for each other will be tested more than once in this introductory title of the Eclair mystery series. Claire knows she loves him and thought he loved her, so why did she find him and a lively large breasted goddess nude under the moonlight? ...It takes humor and intelligence to solve this crime and survive this relationship... so the question is will they? The first couple of chapters will introduce you to Claire, Dan, their family and friends. Stay with it and you will learn much more about them then you expect. The mystery has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and the backdrop of the beauty shop is unique. This mystery not only provides us with a mystery, but also with enough sexual tension to make one blush.
Rating: 
Summary: No more bignets please.
Review: I love New Orleans, spent many a happy hour sitting in Cafe du Monde munching and sipping and watching the styles go by, but....I do not think I ever want to see another recipe or fashion description in a novel again. Kind of how I felt about cotton candy after spending a summer spinning it at a park. This is formula writing at its most predictable. Event, outfit, meal. Outfit, meal, event. You get the picture. This stretches out the murder plot which is cluttered with a romantic plot and cutsey remarks at a level even we male pigs would consider inappropriate in an upscale beauty spa. Where yat? Not here.
Rating: 
Summary: A quick easy read, easy mystery - no surprises
Review: This is the first Eclair mystery - recommended and quite good too. Its an easy read, a bit saccharine at times, but in the end I didn't really care whodunnit because it was pretty easy to figure out the 'whydunnit'. Still there is an element of romance in it for people who like that. This is about Claire Clairmont (nee Jenner) and set in New Orleans against the class structure. Claire comes from the 'swamp rat' side of town, her ex-husband and soon to be husband again, Dan Clairmont, comes from among the wealthy and powerful. There is an awful lot of set up to the story before the murder even happens. We meet Claire as she meets her husband, goes on honeymoon/work to France where, Quelle Horreur, a formula for a perfume, tres expensive, is stolen. Of course this sticks in the mind so when a French woman turns up in Claire's salon 'Eclaire', you know why she is there and what she is doing. I know it is a picky thing, but this seemed to be a book about extreme privilege. Claire has everything - rich husband, who handily decks out her salon as a divorce present. She is beautiful, talented and has no weight problems at all despite eating like a horse throughout the book. I have to confess I much prefer the Kinsey Millhone/Stephanie Plum school of flawed detectives/women who also have a great sense of irony and so a good line in self deprecation at the same time. Claire also has that annoying habit of not doing as she is told and deliberately hiding evidence from the police in order to pursue her own faulty investigation - which could put her in danger. Why do they always do that? It never rings true to me. Anyway - this was a very easy read, has a nice happy ending -of course the murderer is only one of two people it could be so it isn't that unexpected in the end. An easy read for a wet Sunday really.
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