Rating: 
Summary: SHOP NO MORE-THIS IS THE MYSTERY FOR YOU! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Review: Elaine Viets' new mystery series, Dead End Jobs, (haven't we all suffered through them?) delivers a witty, smart debut with SHOP TILL YOU DROP.Helen Hawthorne, once quite successful, is forced to lay low, changing cities and jobs as quickly as she used to change her desinger shoes. Her new profession , salesclerk in a chi chi Florida boutique whose green door keeps out lowlife Sears Robuck rejects, forces her to do more than cater to collagen frozen faces. Underneath the fashionable facade, a nefarious manager has embezzled bucks, and when a murder occurs, Helen must find the perpetrator before her past catches up with her. A six toed cat, a real character of a landlady, and very cheap wine bought by the case, comfort Helen as she works to solve the crime. I can't recommend this fresh, funny, fabulous mystery enough! Fans of Janet Evanovich, Jerrilyn Farmer and Gillian Roberts will delight in this new series. All the rest of you will be thrilled to find Elaine Viets and Helen Hawthorne, and like me, wish Helen would change jobs as quickly as possible-we need more Dead End Jobs!
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Great book with great naration style. End is a little bit too 'clear', but it is not the most important part of Elaine's mistery style. Fort Lauderdale in its 'best'. More description of area and REAL life down there would be highly recommended in future installments.
Rating:
Summary: A FUNTASTIQUE FEMALE FUGITIVE FLORIDA-STYLE
Review: Having firmly transplanted her roots from Saint Louis to Florida, Elaine Viets has taken leave (hopefully only temporarily) of her sleuthing Saint Louis journalist Francesca Vierling series and introduced a new Florida based heroine, Helen Hawthorne. Helen is on the lam in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from something that involved a cheating husband and a crowbar back in Saint Louis. Being a fugitive in Florida means abandoning successful executive position with six figure salary and all the benefits for a series of on your feet for eight hours dead-end jobs that provide a no questions asked cash (but barely minimum wage) salary. Currently this means Helen is serving as a sales associate behind the "green door" of Juliana's the ultra-chic clothing boutique for the hopelessly anorexic and surgically augmented young ladies of the Florida party circuit. This also means living at the less than exclusive Coronado Apartments which, while lacking the pink flamingos of Saint Louis, is abundantly filled with quirky and fun residents. All is going adequately until Helen begins to suspect her manager is pushing designer drugs in addition to designer clothes and embezzling money from the store as well. Then murder enters the picture! And since the police consider her a suspect, Helen realizes that she's going to have the find the murderer herself. And then there's that new gymbot fire inspector living in her apartment complex. Elaine Viets has a way with creating totally believable characters and putting them in situations that guarantee a good mystery and a lot of laughs. SHOP TILL YOU DROP is a brilliant start for a great new series, and Helen Hawthorne is a welcome addition to the world of fugitive fiction who should have a long run. That is, unless the powers that be in Saint Louis track her down in one of her dead-end jobs in Florida. This one gave me a lot of enjoyment, and I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: A "Dead-End Job" Mystery But Not a Dead-End Series
Review: Helen Hawthorne has run away from her Missouri home and her husband of 17 years to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she has taken a job selling designer clothes to skinny rich women. When the body of a skinny woman of her acquaintance is found stuffed into a barrel bobbing in the bay, Helen is forced into the role of sleuth.
SHOP TILL YOU DROP is amply populated with South Florida "characters"-some endearing to Helen, some maddening, and some just plain odd. But surprisingly, they all come across as believable. Even Helen's reason for ditching a successful career to work for minimum wage makes sense once the reason is revealed. And her new identity as a lowly shop girl gives her authentic appreciation and insight into the world at the bottom of the heap. Elaine Viets is a seasoned writer who knows how to tell a story. She kept me reading up to the very satisfying conclusion, when Helen deftly wields the dead-ender's secret weapon. This is the first in a new "dead-end job" series, and I eagerly await Helen Hawthorne's next work adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: Not What It Was Cracked Up To Be
Review: Helen is hiding out from the law and taking any job she can that will pay her under the table. Her first job is at an exclusive clothing store that caters to the highly fashionable of South Florida. Just when she decides her boss is doing some illegal stuff, she vanishes, only to turn up dead. Can Helen find the killer before her past comes out? The book is advertised as a humorous mystery, but I only laughed on the last page. Not because it was over, but because I finally found something truly funny. I think part of the problem is that the narration often seemed more detached then it should have been. The story was interesting and I liked the character even if I thought Helen's reason for being on the run was rather stupid. I'll most likely give the series another chance, but this book didn't live up to my expectations.
Rating:
Summary: Not What It Was Cracked Up To Be
Review: Helen is hiding out from the law and taking any job she can that will pay her under the table. Her first job is at an exclusive clothing store that caters to the highly fashionable of South Florida. Just when she decides her boss is doing some illegal stuff, she vanishes, only to turn up dead. Can Helen find the killer before her past comes out? The book is advertised as a humorous mystery, but I only laughed on the last page. Not because it was over, but because I finally found something truly funny. I think part of the problem is that the narration often seemed more detached then it should have been. The story was interesting and I liked the character even if I thought Helen's reason for being on the run was rather stupid. I'll most likely give the series another chance, but this book didn't live up to my expectations.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry, but I liked it....
Review: I liked Helen, she had spunk! The secondary characters in this book also helped pull the story together and I can't wait to read the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: I LOVE Elaine Viets books. I love them so much I emailed her and told her so! I have read all of her books in two days. She keeps you interested. I highly recommend her books! Can't wait until the next one! (AND RITA DOES HAVE THE BEST CAT NIP!)
Rating:
Summary: Does not live up to hype
Review: I read this book as the title and premise intrigued me. As I continued to read it hoping it would improve I was disappointed.
The hype or endorsements on the book are way overrated. Its not a horrible book - it is a light read but I didn't laugh once even though it was supposed to be humorous. If you want humor (laugh out loud)and a light mystery try Maddy Hunter's books - I can't wait for her next one! But this author, well I might read her next one but it sure won't be on my must buy list.
Rating:
Summary: A unique blend
Review: of shopping in a snooty, upscale Boutique and watching CSI. The main character, Helen has traded a lavish lifestyle to working in a clothing Boutique named Juliana's in Florida for minimum wage. The door always stays locked and is only opened for the rich and beautiful. Helen discovers that Christina (Juliana's Manager) has a special relationship with each customer. She refers the best plastic surgeons, knows how to immigrant housekeepers and the perfect hit man. Things turn sour when Christina is found floating in a barrel in the bay. Her customers are mournful, but more desperate to retrieve their secrets that Christina was holding. It's up to Helen to solve the mystery. I knew that this would be a great read when I saw that Jane Heller called this book, "Irrestible, a heroin with a sense of humor and a gift for snappy dialogue" since Heller is one of my favorite authors. If you like Heller's collection, you will love Shop till You Drop.
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