Review of Double Booked for Death

All right, I finally finished Double Booked for Death by Ali Brandon. And if you've been paying attention to my last few posts, I was pleasantly surprised at the ending.

Darla Pettistone has inherited a brownstone bookstore in New York City from her great-aunt Dee. Even though this meant leaving her life in Texas, Darla is grateful for the change in scenery---especially since her husband recently turned out to be a loser and an ex-husband---and having the 4-story brownstone was paid-in-full by her rich great-aunt. Along with the bookstore, Darla inherits the current employees (like James the professor turned bookstore manager, Jake the ex-cop who lives in the garden apartment downstairs and is "unofficial security" for the bookstore) and friends her great-aunt had made (the old woman who lives in the neighboring brownstone that houses an antique store), as well as her aunt's black cat named Hamlet.

Hamlet is a great little character. If you have a cat, or have spent any time around cats, you'll understand Hamlet perfectly. He doesn't seem to like that Darla is there in his bookstore, or his apartment, and does little things to show his new owner his displeasure: waking her up to be fed in the morning, pulling books off the shelves, and generally being a little bother. He has free range of the brownstone, going from Darla's 4th floor apartment to the two middle levels that house the bookstore at his leisure. I enjoyed Hamlet immensely. His "I'm better than you" attitude reminded me of my big black diva kitty, Kiera. She thinks she is a regal lady and shouldn't be bothered with the inane problems of the regular world, and that I am here as her human servant. But enough of Hamlet, onto the story.

The story begins with Darla settling into her new role as bookstore owner. She's still a little unsure of how to go about running a bookstore, but she doesn't have much time to think about it with a big event happening soon: the best-selling author Valerie Vixon is coming to do a signing of her new book at the store. Vixon is the biggest sensation in young adult paranormal fiction---think of her Haunted High series as a better written Twilight series. But the event isn't going off quite as planned: there's a cloaked protester holding up signs claiming that Valerie Vixon stole her ideas for the story, and an ultra religious group threatening to come up from Texas to protest the spreading of Satan's words. Darla tries to ignore those distractions and get ready for Valerie's arrival. Once the author arrives, Darla fears that all hell breaks loose. Hundreds of teen girls line up outside the bookstore and bring the quiet neighborhood to its knees. Valerie turns out to be a raging diva of an author who treats her entourage horribly. And the hooded protester is out again, holding up her signs saying that Valerie stole her idea. Somehow that chaos is under some level of control until Valerie goes on a break from signing...

And Valerie ends up dead in the street outside the bookstore. Then hell finally breaks loose. The fan girls go hysterical, and the previous distractions come colliding together: the protester with the sign was found close to the fallen author, and the religious protester group's van was determined to be the cause of the author's death. Darla has little time to feel sorry or responsible for what happened because then she gets sucked into a cat-and-mouse game with the cloaked protester, trying to figure out who they are and if they were truly responsible for Valerie's death. As she finds herself digging deeper into Valerie's life and death, she realizes that the author wasn't the nicest person and now Darla has long list of suspects to whittle down. With the help of Jake, the bookstore's on call security guard, they finally track down who is responsible for Valerie's death, while uncovering some interesting secrets of other players on the suspect list. The unlikely help in this case was from Hamlet the cat. He found the first clue in the case after the book signing was canceled, and also helped with giving Darla clues and directions in which to take her amateur sleuthing. He pulled off books from the shelves, that once Darla figured out the titles and the story of the fallen books, she figured out that those tomes gave clues themselves to how to continue with the search for Valerie's killer.

The story is somewhat formulaic, which most of these "cozy mysteries" tend to be, but it is still entertaining. As seen back in this post,  sometimes formulaic books can be a little disappointing for readers if they figure out what's going to happen before finishing the book. However, I was surprised with the ending of the book and who really did the crime, and I was glad that having read so many books hasn't totally screwed any future reading adventures for me. There are still surprises to be had!

I found it was a page-turner, and the integration of Darla's love of books was worked expertly into the overall plot. I have read other cozy mysteries that tend to get sidetracked by the theme of the series. There was a series I read a few volumes of, called the Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle, and it got annoying with the overdone mention of coffee, coffee recipes, and how things were compared to coffee by the main character. In the first volume (pictured at the right), the main character of the Coffeehouse Mysteries went on for almost two pages about the amazing smells and sensory pleasures of coffee. I think I hit my limit with the book when the main character compared the kiss of her love interest to drinking a good cup of espresso. Yes, we get it. You own a coffee shop. You love coffee. Stop comparing everything to coffee. But thankfully Ali Brandon was able to bring in Darla's love of books and her new bookstore without beating the reader over the head with it.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and had a great time reading it. It's a good mystery without a lot of violence or blood or heavy stuff that may scare people off from the more harder books of the mystery genre. This is a promising series with a great respect for the reader of the mystery genre, and for those who love books and also like cats. There is another cozy mystery series that involves cats that my friend June recommended for me to read: Curiosity Thrilled the Cat: A Magical Cats Mystery, by Sofie Kelly. I have the first volume and it will be read and reviewed eventually once I get to it in my ever-growing list of books to read. I recommend this book for anyone looking for a quick---but very good---read. On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss), I give this book a 7.5.
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Updated list of books to review:

• Dead of Night
• Crooked Little Vein
• Homer's Odyssey
• Crimson City Series
• Circle of Heck series (thus far)
• Joe Ledger series (thus far)
• Mutant Island series 
• Double Booked for Death
• Family Affair
• Sacre Bleu
• How I Paid for College
• Attack of the Theater People!
• Liberty
• Tattoo (Jennifer Barnes)