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MURDER CAN CRASH YOUR PARTY
by Selma Eichler
Signet, May 2008
272 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0451223845


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In MURDER CAN CRASH YOUR PARTY, Eichler tries to tell two stories simultaneously, but ends up giving short shrift to both. The main story is the 15th adventure for Desiree Shapiro, a private eye who has been invited to speak at a mystery convention. Crimes at conventions are a particular favorite of mine, so the first disappointment is that the entire weekend takes less than ten pages to tell, with nothing more exciting than Desiree meeting a romance author who offers her $24,940 if she can figure out the identity of the killer in her latest manuscript.

Desiree is so blinded by dollar signs that all of the questions you'd expect a professional to ask have to be posed by other characters. Why is Belle Simone switching genres? Why not an even $25,000? Wouldn't it be better marketing if Belle could claim she wrote a book that stumped a private eye? Long-time mystery fans will figure out what's going on long before the heroine, my second disappointment.

Third disappointment was the way the story within a story was handled. Having invested in Desiree and her friends, I wasn't all that interested in the cliché-ridden by-the-numbers poisoning of Rob Harwood, especially as it was told in a series of boring, painfully obvious lines like "He brought in the forensic team, had photos taken of what's very likely a crime scene, and talked briefly with all the people who were at the apartment when this Harwood fellow died" or "I fully expect that we're going to have to do a lot of digging in order to get at the truth here." Not that the "real life" story is much more interesting, as we break from the investigation to hear about Desiree's meals, bubble bath, and phone calls. I'm a woman reading a mystery novel, I hardly need to get detailed descriptions of what it's like to be a woman reading a mystery novel.

But there are points where Eichler takes a middle ground that's even worse, giving multi-page summaries of the manuscript, thereby robbing the readers of the chance to catch the little details that allow them to solve the crime first.

All I can think of is that, fifteen books in, Eichler has run out of steam. The action finally picks up, but as it takes over two-thirds of the book for that to happen, probably everyone but the most die-hard Desiree fans have long since bailed.

Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, May 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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