Book Review: Killer In Crinolines

Author: Duffy Brown
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: Berkley
Series: Consignment Shop Mystery # 2

It’s August in Savannah, Georgia—hardly the season for a traditional Southern wedding with hoopskirts and crinolines. One could die from the heat—or from a cake knife in the back...

Reagan Summerside should be devoting all her energy to her consignment shop the Prissy Fox. But when her dear friend Chantilly Parker is arrested for murder, Reagan vows to clear her name. The victim is Simon Ambrose, who’s found lying in his own wedding cake with a knife in his back.

Chantilly has motive (Simon broke her heart to marry wealthy Waynetta Waverly) and opportunity (crashing the wedding in her UPS delivery truck). And she has cake on her face, and the stolen bridesmaid dress the killer wore is in her truck. But Chantilly would never wear crinoline to kill a man!

With the help of her flamboyant auntie, KiKi, and vexing but attractive attorney Walker Boone, Reagan is determined to save her friend—before she’s forced to turn in her brown uniform for an orange jumpsuit…

Doreen pushed open the door to the room and flopped back on the bedspread spread-eagle, staring at the ceiling. “The wedding’s off,” she said in a flat voice. “I suppose you could say the groom got creamed. I should have been a librarian like Mamma wanted.” Doreen closed her eyes, draped a black bow tie across her forehead in defeat, and was instantly asleep.

 

“Reagan, honey, I know where this is headed, and it’s good place to be going. You’re working yourself up to getting involved with finding who did in Simon and not listening to one blessed word I say. You haven’t touched your martini, meaning you’re thinking and fretting, and that’s going to lead straight to trouble.”

 

“I know for a fact that Doreen-the-wedding-planner considered murdering Simon a time or two, she told me herself. She got all the blame when things didn’t go right. The man was single-handedly ruining her reputation.”

 

“Oh dear Lord!” I starting for Doreen but then stopped in my tracks because Simon was there, too. He was face down in the five-tiered wedding cake with a silver cake knife sticking out of his back.

Reagan Summerside is still running her consignment shop, The Prissy Fox, and desperately hopes to keep the store and her head above water. On a hot summer’s day in August, Reagan is needed at a local wedding because the groom, Simon Ambrose, has misplaced his bow tie and it’s almost time for his big show! When Reagan arrives at the wedding she finds that her friend and Simon’s ex, Chantilly Parker is at the wedding in her UPS truck and she is sneaking a piece of the wedding cake. After running around with the wedding planner and trying to get this wedding in order, Reagan finds Simon, but not necessarily in a probable situation. Well…he’s lying in the wedding cake…with a knife in his back.

 

Duffy Brown really knows how to capture the South and all her Southern traditions and dialect has me feeling right at home. She paints a cast of completely hilarious and sometimes unlikely characters. Reagan’s gang is sure to make anyone laugh and you cannot get through one of Duffy’s books without bursting into laughter at least one time. I get the small town feeling when I read one of Duffy’s mysteries even though we are in Savannah. All the characters act like one big family and I especially enjoyed Reagan’s relationship with Chantilly, her best friend. I really enjoyed her character because right from the beginning I knew that since Simon Ambrose had left Chantilly for a richer woman, she would be the prime suspect. Chantilly is hysterical, dramatic, and emotional in her current circumstance, but she is everything you would expect a best friend to be!

 

This is the second book in the series, and while I think it’s best to read the first book in this series, I don’t think it is absolutely necessary. Duffy is a talented writer and includes all the important details right from the start. If you love Southern settings or a cast of crazy characters, then this will definitely be a book/series for you to try! Get caught up in a mystery of gigantic proportions!

 

***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Berkley in exchange for my honest review***