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Read Damsels In Distress (2007)

Damsels in Distress (2007)

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3.7 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0312315015 (ISBN13: 9780312315016)
Language
English
Publisher
minotaur books

Damsels In Distress (2007) - Plot & Excerpts

Rating: 3.25* of fiveClaire Malloy, bookselling sleuth of the Farberville Book Depot, returns for her umpty-zillionth murder investigation (well, okay, only the sixteenth) but this time at a *shudder* Renaissance Faire!Now seriously. Have any of y'all been to a Renaissance Faire? Have you not wished intensely for a lethal weapon and civil and criminal immunity? Milady Larchblossom and the Baron Quonsethut, oof! So as Claire snooped about, I found myself squirming in discomfort at the faux olde-tyme speak the cultists used (though not consistently, to the editor's lasting shame) and the instant sense memory of being at one of these events in Texas in heat just like Hess describes.I can't think how anyone could *want* to don Northern European clothing from the era before central heating in the American South. My daughter, who belongs to one of these organizations and is quite renowned for her fighting prowess, will end up being Lanya (one of the characters) but hopefully with better-behaved children.The mystery here is a murder; well, two; and the resolution was neat and tidy and strained credulity to the absolute minimum possible in a series where the sleuth is engaged to a police officer who does not chain her to her doorhandle to prevent her from messing around with crime.I recommend this book without a blush. Newbies, start with "Strangled Prose" and move forward as haphazardly as you wish.

Arkansas bookseller Claire Molloy spends almost as much time solving crimes as she does selling books. This does not make for a peaceful relationship with her husband to be, her police detective Peter Rosen.What harm could come from a local Renaissance fair in Farberville, Arkansas? Only Claire would stumble upon, Edward Cobbinwood, a member of the Renaissance fair group who confides that he has come to Farberville in search of his long-lost father. Claire feels sorry for Edward's plight and decides to help him. While she spends time with the fair's organizers hoping to discover some leads, a house fire claims the life of a mysterious woman named Angie who is working on festival entertainment. A subsequent murder of a local artist who, as it turns out, admitted he was Edward's father, severely complicates everything. While sidestepping attempts to keep her out of the investigation, Claire, as usual, discovers the identity of the killer. A light, pleasant who-done-it with a little humor thrown in for good measure.

What do You think about Damsels In Distress (2007)?

Maybe this is my fault for reading this book without reading any others in the series, but it didn't really hang together that well for me. The motivations of the characters were a bit hard to follow- why are the main characters angry with each other? Why is everyone falling over themselves to befriend the main character, who clearly dislikes them? And it may be a small thing, but why did no-one seem to have a mobile phone? I kept thinking this was written a lot earlier because of the ways the characters acted... Though maybe it's more a reflection of my age. And no-one had heard of Renaissance Fairs? It was fun though, I thought the characters had potential (maybe they would be more fun to read in earlier books in the series) and can't go past the premise of the bookshop owning sleuth. Wouldn't mind reading others, wouldn't go out of my way to do so.
—Catie

I just love to listen to Joan Hess' books! I love the characters and the plots. I love the way the officers call the main character, "Ms. Malloy," when they think she shouldn't be where she is at, which is usually in the wrong place at the wrong time. Claire Malloy is funny and intelligent. Her daughter is a typical teenager: "Your going to ruin my life, mother!" This mystery centers around a Renaissance fair in Claire's home town, with every nut in town that loves the Renaissance times becoming a murder suspect. Since Claire has come to know these people, she feels she needs to find out who the killer is, and why they killed two people.
—Sandi Willis

Okay, I enjoy reading Joan Hess. She's funny and witty; she's light reading and she doesn't telegraph her endings like so many "light" mystery authors. Like Madelyn Alt, she makes me chuckle with her witty asides and observations on humanity, kids and whacked-out adults. But here, she combined another weakness of mine: Renaissance Faires!She provides us with a scathing satire of the silliness of a certain group of people that pretty much "invented" the concept of RenFaire's, though here, she refers to them as the "Association for Renaissance Scholarship and Enlightenment" or ARSE.A murder happens in the town of Farberville, AR and, of course, Bookshop owner, Clair Malloy (why are they all Irish?) has to investigate. And, of course, her fiance, Det. Lt. Peter Rosen, is off at FBI Terrorist Training in Quantico.Claire finds out that the jolly band of SCAdians... I mean ARSE-Members... are not all as tight and friendly as they show on the surface. I won't give away any more other than I did laugh-out-loud at several points.Good book for a cold (and broke) Saturday night read!
—Jack

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