Review by Booklist Review
In this second in the series, Mattie Winston, deputy coroner of Sorenson City, Wisconsin, is called away from a Halloween party when waitress and model Shannon Tolliver is found murdered at her home. Detective Hurley is convinced that Shannon's estranged husband, Erik, is the culprit, but Mattie doesn't believe he is capable of the crime. She is so convinced of Erik's innocence, in fact, that she launches her own investigation (with Hurley's blessing). In addition, as part of an inheritance squabble, Mattie and her boss, Izzy, must determine the times of death of a couple who died in a car accident that went undiscovered for weeks. In her personal life, Mattie is broke and and planning to divorce her philandering husband. This has the makings of an appealing series on multiple fronts: the forensic details will interest Patricia Cornwell readers, though the tone here is lighter, while the often slapstick humor and the blossoming romance between Mattie and Hurley will draw Evanovich fans who don't object to the cozier mood.--O'Brien, Sue Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When shocked trick-or-treaters discover the body of model Shannon Tolliver one Halloween night, Mattie Winston investigates in Ryan's sharp second mystery to feature the Sorenson City, Wis., deputy coroner (after 2009's Working Stiff). Homicide cop Steve Hurley suspects Erik, Shannon's estranged radiology tech hubby, killed her. Mattie believes him innocent, though the .38 used in the shooting appears to be Erik's. Shannon's boyfriend, playboy psychiatrist Luke Nelson, or one of Luke's infatuated female patients, may have had more motive. When Mattie totals her car after interviewing Luke, she winds up making a deal with elderly Bjorn Adamson, a taxi driver, to use his cab in exchange for periodically changing his urinary catheter leg bag. The pseudonymous Ryan, a real-life ER RN, sometimes gives the reader too much information, but she shows growing skill at mixing humor with CSI-style crime. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Sex and scatology are the order of the day as a newly minted Deputy Coroner tries to clear a former colleague of murder.When last spotted, ER nurse Mattie Winston (Working Stiff,2009)had quit her hospital job after finding her co-worker Karen Owenby "playing with a certain private organ" belonging to her surgeon husband David, taken a job working for Sorenson's diminutive, gay medical examiner, Izzy Rybarceski, and developed a serious case of the hots for Detective Steve Hurley. In this installment, things get seriously weird. Mattie is called to pry the decomposed bodies of Gerald and Bitsy Heinrich from their Cadillac Escalade, gets "death goo" on her butt and maggots down her ample cleavage, and strips off her scrubs in the middle of the crash scene. After her own vehicle is totaled, she hires elderly cabbie Bjorn to squire her around town in exchange for periodically emptying his urine catheter bag. The Heinrich offspring, battling over their parents' estate, are led by alcoholic Easton, who drops his trousers, wiggles his wanker at the cops and starts a melee worthy of a hockey game. But when radiology tech Erik Tolliver is accused of murdering his estranged wife Shannon, waitress at local eatery Dairy Airs, Mattie gets down to business, enlisting her lecherous brother-in-law Lucien to defend her fellow health-care worker while she searches for other solutions to the grisly crime.Ryan dedicates Mattie's second case to her mom, leaving interested readers to imagine what maternal bond generated this distinctively gross-out cozy sensibility.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
