In the latest entry in her Dead-End Job Mystery Series [the other being the popular Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Series], Helen Hawthorne, 41 years old, has been working at Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts, a high-end clothing consignment shop in South Florida. When a customer is found dead in a dressing room, apparently hanged with – what else? – a designer scarf around her neck, the owner prevails upon Helen to help find the killer, as the notoriety is killing her business [pun intended]. There were several people in the store at the time, including one of Helen’s neighbors, a prominent local politician and a wealthy developer and his wife [among other women he apparently knew intimately].
The dynamics of the consignment shop are interesting, its customers comprised of women who want to look richer than they are, buying designer fashions brought in by “desperate housewives. Well-dressed women who need cash.” And hopefully the members of the first group never meet the members of the second group, especially when wearing recognizable outfits/shoes/accessories.
Complicating things for Helen are the fragile state of her mother’s health [she's been in a coma for three months with a very poor prognosis], and the reappearance of her ex-husband, who tries to blackmail her. But Helen perseveres in her investigation, aided by her p.i. fiancé. Then a second murder occurs, only heightening the stakes [especially since the victim was a suspect in the first murder].
I thought the book could have been tightened up a bit as I found a lot of repetitious exposition. Nonetheless, this entry in the series, as its predecessors, is a light-hearted and breezy book, and an excellent beach read.
