Murder by Manicure
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Salon owner Marla Shore discovers a whirlpool of secrets when she joins a sports club and solves a nail-biting murder in this humorous cozy mystery.
Hairstylist Marla Shore joins a fitness club to get in shape but discovers a dead body instead of an exercise routine. Jolene Myers—a client at Marla’s salon—has drowned beneath the frothing waters of the whirlpool. When Homicide Detective Dalton Vail determines Jolene's death was no accident, Marla decides to give her deductive skills a workout and help solve the case.
Jolene had few friends at the fancy athletic club. As Marla gets to know everyone, she wonders who might have targeted Jolene for a lethal soak in the hot tub. The shady pharmacist? The smarmy city councilman? Or maybe the vocal animal rights activist? The fitness club staff had no fondness for Jolene, either. How far would they go to keep their secrets? When another member turns up dead, Marla intensifies her efforts to nail the killer and wrap the case. If she fails, the next buff body on its way to the morgue might be hers.
“Marla Shore is a beguiling, very clever sleuth who teases out every clue. Absolutely delightful!” Jill Churchill, author of the Jane Jeffry & Grace and Favor mystery series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this middling cozy, Florida hairdresser Marla Shore steps out of her salon into a deadly fitness club for her third excursion as an amateur sleuth (after 2000's Hair Raiser). Taking advantage of a free trial membership, Marla encounters one of her customers, Jolene Myers, on her first visit. Jolene has a rather heated argument with another member, Cookie Calcone, and not long after that, Jolene turns up dead in a whirlpool. Marla's love interest, homicide detective Dalton Vail, thinks Jolene's death was no accident, and Marla starts poking around, trying to dig up information to help solve the case. Marla's list of suspects includes staff members of the fitness club the handsome massage therapist Slate Harper and pushy Keith Hamilton as well as local realtors Sam and Eloise Zelman, local councilman Wallace Ritiker and pharmacist Hank Goodfellow. A second murder and a disappearance muddy the waters, but Marla continues doggedly on, despite a couple of attacks trying to warn her off. Det. Vail does more posturing and smoldering than actual detection, while Marla stews over making a commitment to him. Cohen leavens the narrative with Marla's comments on hairstyles and makeup, and the premise is a promising one, but the mostly one-dimensional characters and strained dialogue dilute the effects.
