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DESIGNED TO KILL
by Denise Osborne
Berkley, March 2003
193 pages
$5.99
ISBN: 0425189112


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Feng shui practitioner, Salome Waterhouse, closed up her Washington D.C. residence and is off to her southern California home. She plans on spending some time with her family. Salome is also going to lead a feng shui seminar at the prestigious Star Institute.

Toby Ashcroft, who co-owned the Institute along with his sister, Ivy, was found murdered near the pumpkin field that was also a part of the Institute¹s property a few days before the seminar was to begin. Ivy didn¹t want to postpone the seminar, so on a rainy and wind swept night, Salome found herself on the way to the Star Institute.

While driving, Salome ran into a problem with another motorist who ran her off the road. To her horror, the driver looked just like Duncan Mah, a killer who threatened her months earlier in Washington D.C. When she arrived at the Institute, she saw the car and soon discovered that it belonged not to Mah but to Ivy Ashcroft¹s fiancé, Ross Penderville.

Before Salome was able to check into her room and dry off from the rain, she had to attend the welcome dinner that was already in progress. It was at this dinner that she met some of the other speakers and the people who were going to attend the seminar¹s classes.

When she left the dinner, Salome met Marcella Cruz who not only worked and lived at the Institute but was also the fiancé of the recently murdered co-owner of the Institute, Toby Ashcroft.

The Institute¹s lodgings consisted of small houses, each with a different name. Even though Salome was in one of the nicer residences, she was very uneasy as she settled in for the night. The accommodations were not set up for good energy, feng shui wise, and Salome could feel bad vibrations all around her.

During the middle of the night, the toilets from another house overflowed and everyone ended up in the house where Salome was staying. The electricity also went out, and to her horror a woman Salome met during dinner was murdered! There was some very bad energy around indeed. Something strange was going on at Star Institute and with the help of feng shui, Salome was going to help figure it all out.

Even though I did enjoy DESIGNED TO KILL, there seemed to be a lot going on in the storyline. There are the two murders, the woman who was attending the seminar, and the more important murder of Toby Ashcroft. Then the author, Denise Osborne, throws in the idea that Duncan Mah was stalking Salome. Salome¹s friend, Judah Freeman, an ex detective in D.C., then shows up in California to make sure that Salome is safe from Mah. In my opinion, far too much was going on that diluted my interest in the murders. It almost felt as if the author wasn¹t sure that the Toby Ashcroft murder would keep the readers interested, so she threw in more unnecessary side stories.

I would have preferred it if Ms. Osborne didn¹t detract so much from the Ashcroft murder. She brought in not only the Mah concept but yet another storyline that had to do with a family that had a long held dispute with Salome¹s relatives.

There¹s a lot of feng shui in DESIGNED TO KILL.  I like the way Ms. Osborne created an amateur sleuth who tries to solve murders in a completely different and original way. Salome travels with all of her feng shui paraphernalia and the readers learn all about its practice along the way.

DESIGNED TO KILL is the third book in the Salome Waterhouse series and is well worth reading.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, March 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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