Reviewed by Rosetta Diane Hoessli, Author
***** (5 Stars)
Here's my latest book review for Susie Black's Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, and I hope you enjoy it. This is DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, Book Two in the series, and if you haven't begun reading it, you're seriously shortchanging yourself!
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Pins-Needles-Hysterical-Whodunit-ebook/dp/B0BPLHRWJ7/
Here we go!
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This second novel of the Holly Swimsuit Mystery Books (unless you count prequel RAG LADY as the first of the series, which I do) is so filled with red herrings and surprises that my head spun and took off on a mystery tangent all its own. Here’s the blurb on the back cover, which only gives you a tiny taste of what you have in store:
I’d combed the place from one end to another and found no sign of Lissa. Where the Sam Hill could she be? Not in the showroom. Not in her office. Not in the kitchen. Not in the copier room. In the ladies’ room? Abducted by aliens? Hiding in a closet? I was out of options and time. So, for giggles and squeaks, I pulled open the doors to the enormous sample closet that stretched across the back wall and peered inside. Good news. I found Lissa Charney. The question was, did she have my key?
A dozen swimsuits picture-framed Lissa’s battered, bloody corpse like a museum exhibit. Ringed with matching black and purplish-blue shiners, her wide open, sightless eyes stared into space as though surprised by her situation. No kidding. That made two of us. I was no doctor, but you didn’t need a medical degree for this diagnosis. No need to take her pulse. One thing was for sure. Lissa Charney had made her last sales presentation.
Naturally, I burst out laughing.
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Crap on a crumpet. She gave me the stink-eye, the big eye, the three-finger salute. These are the crazy character descriptions that I’ve come to look forward to in a Holly Swimsuit Mystery Book. This heroine is so sarcastic and caustic that I sometimes don’t even know what to think, but I love her in spite of it all.
Our 4’9” heroine, Holly Schlivnik, is a real pistol, but one you’re never sure is going off in a direction you saw coming - or even the right direction. Being vertically challenged myself, I get why it’s more important for her to be seen as a keg of dynamite than just another cute face, so she always takes risks no one else will because…well, because she has to.
After all, she has to prove herself…doesn’t she?
In DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, Holly takes on a whole cast of people twice her size – and badder than she ever thought of being. Every single one of them has a great motive for having done the deed. She’s seriously judgmental and opinionated about who she thinks ‘done it,’ but she doesn’t hesitate to back off when she realizes she’s wrong. Of course, when that happens, Holly has to assuage her cratered ego with pizza, Rocky Road ice cream, and Chardonnay, and I just love that about her. Holly has foibles and idiosyncrasies, as we all do, and Author Susie Black doesn’t try to conceal them. Instead, she builds on them until she’s created a completely relatable character – one that the reader has to love, in spite of everything.
Another characteristic I truly admire is her loyalty to her friends, the Yentas. These are women in the swimsuit fashion industry who meet for coffee every morning at A Jolt of Java coffee shop, all good friends of Holly who never seem to mind one iota when she harnesses them in for mystery-solving duty in her latest escapade. If one of them is in trouble (and one of them is in the beginning of this novel), you know without even thinking about it that Holly Schlivnik is going to be there. Several times I found myself thinking, Man, I wish I had some friends as giving of their time and as energetic as these ladies!
The ending of DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES is a shocker, though, and it took me completely by surprise. I thought I had it wired – and I almost did – but there was so much more to it than I thought there was. Still, I promise you: You’ll never figure it out.
Plus, a handsome detective built like a brick outhouse is coming on the scene…
I’m preparing to read the third novel in this rollicking series shortly, which is DEATH BY SURFBOARD, and I’m really looking forward to it.
I’m very happy to give DEATH BY PINS AND NEEDLES, by Susie Black, a five-star rating. (*****)