Discount Price: $6.99
Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780451210722
ISBN number: 0451210727
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: November 04, 2003
Publishing house: Signet
Release Date: November 04, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 201471
Studio: Signet
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Skye joins Scumble River's social club and ends up at a party at the home of socialites Barbie and Ken Addison. But not long after, Skye gets caught in a murder mystery when she finds the perfect couple, perfectly dead...
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
This is the fifth Scumble River Mystery: Murder of a small town honey, Murder of a sweet old lady, Murder of a sleeping beauty, Murder of a snake in the grass. There is also a short story in the anthology book, Drop Dead Blonde, but is the very first I'm reviewing.
The short story was what I read very first and it was just barely interesting enough to get me to buy this series, which have turned out to be interesting but frustrating and this book is the worst, and seems to contain all the problems I noticed in the other books.
Skye Denison is a school psychologist, who was fired from her very first job in New Orleans and dumped by her fiancee, she couldn't get a job anywhere, so was forced to come back home to Scumble River, Illinois which she had insulted in her high school valedictorian speech a dozen years before.
Skye and her boyfriend Simon have joined Scumble River's Social Club where Sky finds herself being invited to such events as Instant Gourmet food night at the home of Ken and Barbie Addison. Reluctantly, Skye purchases some of the food, just so she can get out of there.
Things are even worse when she stops by in a snow storm to pick up the food only to find Ken, strangled on the floor and Barbie strangled and hidden in the freezer. Why would someone want to kill Ken, who's a doctor or Barbie?
With everyone, including Wally the police chief asking her to help solve the crime, Skye puts on her detective cap and searches for the killer of what looks like a perfect couple, and uncovers some truly nasty secrets being hidden by the Scumble River residents.
Highlights:
Skye's family, from her parents to her hairdresser brother Vince, aunts, uncles and cousins are a close-knit family, who are like a lot of families, arguing but still loving each other.
Wally, I love the police chief. He doesn't mind Skye getting involved in the investigations, as long as she lets him know what she's doing. He had been a rookie cop when Sky, a fifteen year old had developed a crush on him, which he had handled perfectly without taking advantage or embarrassing her.
Lowlights:
Skye. I don't know how she can get on with her daily life since she obviously has no backbone. She constantly complains about how she wants to stand on her own, she's in her thirties, but lets her mother clean her house, her father & godfather buy her a car and generally take care of all of her problems. She always complaining, but doesn't do anything to stop them. And she picked the wrong boyfriend.
Simon - her boyfriend, coroner and owner of the funeral home. He's ok, but most women, with a backbone would not have gone out with him after the way he treated her on their very first two meetings. (Read Murder Of A Small Town Honey). Skye tends to start acting like a fourteen year old when she's around any man.
Bunny - Simon's mother. This woman walked out on Simon and her husband over thirty years ago to become a dancer, she had come home a couple of times, claiming she would give it up, the last time was twenty years ago when not only did she leave, but stole all the savings from the bank on her way out. Simon doesn't want to have anything to do with this woman, but Skye is determined they are going to get together. This woman is a vulgar pig, which is trying to pass itself off as being eccentric. Fortunately, she just showed up in this book, so you can have four books to read before she appears. Her character was one of the reasons I was hesitant about getting the series, as she is in the short story.
Skye is another example of characters in books who claim they have to do something because it would hurt another person's feelings or not be polite. TOO BAD. Bunny shows up one night claiming to be Simon's mother and Skye just lets her move in, without even asking for any ID.
The mysteries are interesting and if you can stand the frustration of wanting to smack the heroine upside the head, this is an ok series to read while waiting for something better.
Rated by buyers -
Skye Denison and her boyfriend Simon join a social club and begin participating in activities with other couples in the club. Skye even finds herself at the home of the glamour couple, Ken and Barbie Addison, attending an Instant Gourmet party. When Skye goes to the Addison home to collect the food she purchased at the party, she finds that someone has murdered Ken and Barbie. Another unpleasant surprise occurs when Simon's mother, Bunny, shows up unexpectedly and decides to stay with Skye. Since Bunny has a bad relationship with Simon, this puts Skye in an awkward position. Skye manages to do her job as a school psychologist, date Simon, deal with his mother, and investigate the murders all at the same time. There are no end of suspects because Ken Addison was a much reviled person who cheated in his personal and professional lives. Skye persists in her investigation until she and Simon are almost added to the list of murder victims. This is another delightful book in the Scumble River series and should be pleasing to Denise Swanson's fans.
Rated by buyers 
-
Skye Denison is a school psychologist in Scumble River. Her boyfriend Simon, the coroner and funeral home owner, has joined the local social club, Grand Union of the Mighty Bulls, and he has talked her into joining the GUMB ladies' auxiliary. That's how she met Barbie Addison.
Skye attended a Instant Gourmet party at Barbie's and ended up buying a week's worth of Instant Gourmet food. Skye's dad gives her a ride to Barbie's to pick up her food. Her Bel Air doesn't do well in really bad weather. They find Barbie and Ken (her husband) dead.
Police Chief Walter Boyd asked Skye and Simon to help him investigate their murders. Skye has assisted in the past, but usually against everyone's wishes. This is a new twist for Wally to ask for her help. He knows he needs people who are in GUMB to help find out information.
To complicate matters more, Simon's mother Bunny arrived at Skye's house one night in a snowstorm with no where else to stay. Skye thought Simon's mother was dead so she is quite surprised to meet her. At least that's what Simon had told her! Skye's Uncle Charlie who runs a local motel, referred Bunny to Skye's for the night. One night turns into many! Bunny isn't the easiest person to live with either. Simon was not too happy to see his mother.
Skye and Simon find themselves in many interesting situations as they assist Wally in the investigation.
I love the characters and their interactions in this series. Denise has constructed such a great cast of characters. Plus Scumble River is the typical small town (if any are typical). Everyone knows everyone's business and there are plenty of scandals.
I highly recommend this book and the whole series! It's great! It is a wonderful cozy mystery series.
Rated by buyers -
It's never a good thing when an author bases their main character so much on themselves that it interferes with forming the character individually in the reader's mind. In this case of this series, it's obvious that's just what this author has done, just by reading the little bio blurb in the back cover. At least try for a little deviation from yourself, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally.
Skye has become increasingly annoying as the series progresses. There's no justifiable reason whatsoever for her sticking her nose into these cases, and even less reason for a police chief to not only allow her to do it, but give her acess to confidential information in order to faciliate her "assistance." It gets even more ludicrous when her mother, the town police dispatcher, gives her permission to go into the store room to poke through evidence while the chief is out of the office. Shouldn't that be grounds for termination?
If Skye's romance with Simon is supposed to be sexy, the author is doing a poor job of portraying that. These are two grown adults, neither is attached, the whole town knows they're dating, and yet they feel they have to sneak around? That no one has figured out they're sleeping together? What is this, junior high school? There's nothing at all appealing about this couple.
Add in the silliness of Bunny, Frannie and Justin at the end, and this was almost a painful book to finish. If the author wants to continue this series, then she needs to have her characters grow up and stop acting like a bunch of teenagers trying to form their own "in-crowd."
Rated by buyers -
This is a fun little lite cozy murder mystery, offering insights such as this father-daughter advice from 30-something School Psychologist Skye Denison's dad: You only need 2 tools, WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use the WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the duct tape. Anything more complicated than that, call me.
And here's a fun flashback from Skye's Funeral Director Beau's Mom, Bunny: In the 60s, we took acid to make the world weirder. Now the world is weirder than we can handle, and we take Prozac to make it normal.
The plot and pace are perky. The style's breezy. If you live in small town, or used to, you KNOW some of these characters!
/TundraVision, out of a farmland village of about 900 souls in the Illinois heartland.
Find other books like this one:
