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SHOP TILL YOU DROP is the first in the 'Dead End Job' series by Elaine Viets, featuring Helen Hawthorne. Following a violent domestic incident, Helen is on the run from St Louis, determined to make a living in low-paid cash-in-hand jobs, so she can't be traced. We find Helen living in an apartment complex in Fort Lauderdale, populated with a diverse and fun group of people. To make ends nearly meet, Helen is working as an assistant in Juliana's -- an ultra-exclusive boutique pandering to a small group of fashion victims of indeterminate age. Most of the customers, who we get to know very well, seem to be professional mistresses for whom the major topics of interest are plastic surgery, men and clothes. But things are not what they seem, and Helen starts suspecting a range of crimes centre on the shop. She tries to find another job, but before she succeeds she is caught up in a murder. SHOP TILL YOU DROP is a light-hearted page-turner of a mystery with a splash of dating dilemmas; chick-lit with bodies. If you need to clean your mental palate between darker mysteries, this may do the trick. I found Helen's friends amusing and likeable in the usual cozy-mystery way, though this wasn't a laugh-out-loud book for me as its blurbs have suggested it might be. The plot progressed quickly and interestingly and there were plenty of suspects to choose from. There were a couple of things I was less fond of: Canadians may be infuriated by being stereotyped as tight-wads in the early part of the book -- it was unnecessary to make this the characteristic of a nation rather than an individual. I also felt that initially hiding the reason for Helen being on the run, and gradually disclosing it throughout the book, was an annoying tease -- I would have preferred this to be stated up front. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of escapism, and am looking forward to reading the second in the series, MURDER BETWEEN THE COVERS, to catch up with the characters again. Elaine Viets has also written another series featuring Francesca Vierling, a newspaper columnist in St. Louis, Missouri, the first of which is BACKSTAB.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, March 2004
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