ISBN-10:
ISBN-13: 978-
Publisher: Penguin Group
Line: Berkley
Release Date: Mar 4, 2014
Pages: 305
Retail Price: 7.99
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Genre: Mystery
Rating:
It’s election time in Savannah, Georgia, and Judge Guillotine Gloria—aka Reagan Summerside’s mom—is neck and neck in the polls with Kip “Scummy” Seymour. But the already dirty campaign is about to get downright filthy—with one candidate getting buried six feet under…
With her strong opinions and knack for getting into trouble, Reagan is not an ideal volunteer for her mother’s alderman campaign. Plus, she’d rather be running her consignment shop, the Prissy Fox, and eating doughnuts with her dog, Bruce Willis. But when her mother’s opponent, Kip, is found poisoned and her mother is pegged as a suspect, Reagan nominates herself as lead murder investigator.
Reagan is intent on finding Kip’s killer and clearing her mother’s good name, but she soon finds herself on the bad side of Kip’s enemies-turned-suspects. This time, no amount of costumes and makeup can keep her inconspicuous and out of danger. Because the closer Reagan gets to the truth, the hotter things get…
Review
For fans of: Jacklyn Brady
Reagan Summerside would do almost anything to get out of volunteering for her mother Gloria’s alderman campaign; she might share a name with our 40th President, but the consignment shop owner is about as far from a political animal as a person can get. When her mother’s chief rival is found dead, though, and the police decide they like Gloria for the crime, Reagan realizes she may have something to contribute to the cause, after all: her sleuthing skills.
Pearls and Poison is the third of Duffy Brown’s Consignment Shop Mysteries. I absolutely adored Brown’s debut, Iced Chiffon, so I had incredibly high hopes for this latest installment. I’m sorry to say, though, that Pearls and Poison just doesn’t quite meet expectations.
A lot of what I loved about Iced Chiffon can also be found between the covers of Pearls and Poison. The book has a strong sense of place and contains a lot of Southern charm. Brown’s mystery is intelligently crafted and I’d be lying if I said she didn’t keep me guessing until the end. Reagan’s boozy Aunt Kiki makes for a perfect sidekick and steals every single scene in which she appears. And I still absolutely adore the character of Boone; a former gang member turned high-powered attorney, he’s about as nuanced, mysterious, sexy, and charismatic a potential love interest as I’ve seen.
That said, though, the book’s lacking a lot of the nuance that made the series’ start so compelling. Where before Reagan’s narration was charmingly scattered, here it borders on manic and is occasionally difficult to follow. Almost all of the ancillary characters are so over the top, they’re practically caricatures. The situations Reagan gets herself into are all so ridiculous and far-fetched they’d be more at home in a farce than a cozy. The book’s big climax isn’t in any way climactic; the scene is too short, it’s devoid of tension, and the final action sequence (as written, anyway) is physically impossible. Add to all that uneven pacing and you have a book that, while decent, just doesn’t live up to what I know Brown to be capable of.
Reviewed by Kat