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DATING DEAD MEN
by Harley Jane Kozak
Broadway, March 2005
352 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 0767921232


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Wollie, short for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, runs a greeting card store on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. It's her dream to rise from a mere store manager to own her own franchise. But before her Welcome! store can achieve Wilkommen! status, she must pass a series of inspections by undercover shoppers.

And if this weren't enough stress for one tall, gorgeous blonde to handle, Wollie has also agreed to participate in a research project that requires her to date 40 men in 60 days in order to earn the $5,000 participant fee she desperately needs to purchase her store.

In the middle of a visit from her manager, Wollie receives a phone call from her brother telling her that he's witnessed a murder. Since her brother, PB, is a patient in a nearby mental hospital, the call is not nearly as upsetting to Wollie as it is to the district manager who overhears the call.

Since Wollie has been PB's main life support since she was eleven, she rushes to the hospital as soon as she can to bring him a roll of aluminum foil, which she knows from experience helps calm him. When she enters the hospital grounds, she discovers the body of a young man in the driveway.

Further investigation reveals the guy, who is wearing an MIT sweatshirt, has been shot. Wollie fears that this man's death may have been the murder PB says he witnessed. Because she knows PB has a morbid fear of the police, and that reporting the murder will inevitably involve him in the investigation, Wollie ignores the body and continues on to the hospital.

She's in an elevator on her way home when she notices that a very handsome man dressed in surgical scrubs isn't wearing any shoes. Before she knows what's happening, he's kidnapped her and locked two security guards in their patrol car. Wollie's so attracted to him and he's such a nice guy that she really doesn't mind going on the lam with this short, dark stranger.

So begins a rollicking, madcap, crazy adventure called DATING DEAD MEN which has won Harley Jane Kozak the Best First Novel Anthony, MacCavity and Agatha awards this year. Kozak is one amazing writer, straddling as she does the romance and mystery genres with equal precision.

Most of the success of this book is in the vivid characterization of the protagonist. In Wollie, Kozak has created a character and voice of incredible warmth. I found myself rooting for Wollie far more than I ever cared about, say, Stephanie Plum, because Wollie, unlike the other women who populate this sub-genre of mystery, is a responsible woman who has tried hard all of her life to take care of those around her who are vulnerable.

She's played by the rules, and now finds herself on the threshold of realizing her dream of shop ownership. She yearns for financial security, not just for herself, but because she knows so many around her depend on her. By the time the climactic scenes rolled around, I was so entirely in Wollie's corner that I made myself hoarse alternately laughing and cheering her on.

If you're looking for a who-done-it sort of cozy, you might be disappointed with DATING DEAD MEN. Wollie spends little time on detection in the traditional sense. She's too busy with running the store, wiggling into the strange clothes that she must wear on her blind dates, worrying about PB, Ruby and 'doc' and trying to figure out what to feed Margaret, the ferret, to play your average amateur sleuth. But that doesn't mean that she's not paying attention. It's her insight that solves the puzzle in the end and she's able to figure it out because she remembers the lessons of her screwed-up childhood.

If you're in the mood for something to take your mind off the tragedy around us, you might enjoy hanging out with Wollie Shelley for a few hours.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, September 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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