Death and the Lit Chick
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Rumour has it that prima donna Kimberlee is shopping around for a new agent. Then Kimberlee turns up dead at the bottom of the castle's bottle dungeon. Can Detective Inspector St Just solve the mystery?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Everybody's bumped into the chick-lit mysteries -- they usually have an artful looking body, a sexy woman, and fluff between the covers.
And they get a thorough skewering in "Death and the Lit Chick," the second of G.M. Malliet's mysteries featuring Detective Chief Inspector St. Just. Malliet spins together a clever little mystery with some clever turns of phrase (a creepy little man is referred to as being "oily like undercooked salmon"), but she stumbles a bit on the characterization -- especially of the Required Love Interest.
Kimberlee Kalder has become the darling of the Deadly Dagger publishing house, with her bestselling "Dying For a Latte" chick-lit/mystery. She's also completely arrogant, hinting herself to be superior to Jane Austen, George Eliot and Edith Wharton.
But jealousy starts roiling when St. Just attends a mystery convention at a remote Scottish castle, where Kimberlee's success and arrogant attitude start rubbing people the wrong way. So it's not exactly a huge shock when, during a power outage, someone finds Kimberlee dead in the bottle dungeon.
So now St. Just must interview the people there, and find what motive (other than professional jealousy) might have prompted murder... all while getting distracted by the comely rising star, Portia De'Ath. And he starts getting a pretty good idea of the kind of person Kimberlee was, and the nasty secrets connected to her -- schemes, affairs, old muckraking, and other fun details -- just in time for another murder.
Apparently G.M. Malliet's series has a "theme" -- murder mysteries set around murder mystery writers, which admittedly is kind of a limited field. But she has some fun with "Death and the Lit Chick," mostly in aptly lampooning the publishing industry's rivalries, flaws and backstabbing. Not to mention skewering the trend of writing chick-lit books with a lightweight murder mystery and/or industry whining.
And Malliet does a pretty good job making a cozy weekend murder in an old castle, with some lovely descriptions ("its dark drum tower and arrow-slit turrets starkly outlined against a blue-moonstone sky") and clever phrases ("she didn't half stand out like a Viking at a luau"). It really is difficult to figure out who the murderer is, since there are plenty of suspects and an ever-increasing pile of motives, but he sprinkles some decent clues along the way.
And there's some valiant efforts at flashing out St. Just's personality, with some haunting grief about his late wife gumming up the works early on. Unfortunately he's too instantly infatuated by the cutesy-named Portia De'Ath, and too willing to dismiss the possibility that a woman he's just met (who seems intent on horning into police procedure) could be guilty.
Fortunately the supporting characters are a little steadier -- Malliet has fun with the hard-as-nails ex-agent and future agent/boyfriend, geek hubby, flamboyant Barbra Cartlandesque bestseller of yesteryear, and rivals ranging from an explosive arrogant thriller-writer to a frumpy nonentity.
"Death and the Lit Chick" has a big flaw in St. Just's instant infatuation with Portia, but the rest of the novel is a pleasant, vaguely cozy mystery (with more than a hint of publishing satire).
And they get a thorough skewering in "Death and the Lit Chick," the second of G.M. Malliet's mysteries featuring Detective Chief Inspector St. Just. Malliet spins together a clever little mystery with some clever turns of phrase (a creepy little man is referred to as being "oily like undercooked salmon"), but she stumbles a bit on the characterization -- especially of the Required Love Interest.
Kimberlee Kalder has become the darling of the Deadly Dagger publishing house, with her bestselling "Dying For a Latte" chick-lit/mystery. She's also completely arrogant, hinting herself to be superior to Jane Austen, George Eliot and Edith Wharton.
But jealousy starts roiling when St. Just attends a mystery convention at a remote Scottish castle, where Kimberlee's success and arrogant attitude start rubbing people the wrong way. So it's not exactly a huge shock when, during a power outage, someone finds Kimberlee dead in the bottle dungeon.
So now St. Just must interview the people there, and find what motive (other than professional jealousy) might have prompted murder... all while getting distracted by the comely rising star, Portia De'Ath. And he starts getting a pretty good idea of the kind of person Kimberlee was, and the nasty secrets connected to her -- schemes, affairs, old muckraking, and other fun details -- just in time for another murder.
Apparently G.M. Malliet's series has a "theme" -- murder mysteries set around murder mystery writers, which admittedly is kind of a limited field. But she has some fun with "Death and the Lit Chick," mostly in aptly lampooning the publishing industry's rivalries, flaws and backstabbing. Not to mention skewering the trend of writing chick-lit books with a lightweight murder mystery and/or industry whining.
And Malliet does a pretty good job making a cozy weekend murder in an old castle, with some lovely descriptions ("its dark drum tower and arrow-slit turrets starkly outlined against a blue-moonstone sky") and clever phrases ("she didn't half stand out like a Viking at a luau"). It really is difficult to figure out who the murderer is, since there are plenty of suspects and an ever-increasing pile of motives, but he sprinkles some decent clues along the way.
And there's some valiant efforts at flashing out St. Just's personality, with some haunting grief about his late wife gumming up the works early on. Unfortunately he's too instantly infatuated by the cutesy-named Portia De'Ath, and too willing to dismiss the possibility that a woman he's just met (who seems intent on horning into police procedure) could be guilty.
Fortunately the supporting characters are a little steadier -- Malliet has fun with the hard-as-nails ex-agent and future agent/boyfriend, geek hubby, flamboyant Barbra Cartlandesque bestseller of yesteryear, and rivals ranging from an explosive arrogant thriller-writer to a frumpy nonentity.
"Death and the Lit Chick" has a big flaw in St. Just's instant infatuation with Portia, but the rest of the novel is a pleasant, vaguely cozy mystery (with more than a hint of publishing satire).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
22 reviews
49 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Drawing Room Mystery With a Satirical Twist
24 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the highlights of my 2008 reading was Death of a Cozy Writer by G. M. Malliet, the first mystery to feature DCI St. Just of Cambridgeshire. I was so completely hooked by the first novel that I pre-ordered the second, Death of a Lit Chick, as soon as amazon.com listed it. I wondered a bit whether the follow-up would be as satisfying, mainly because Malliet created such deliciously wicked characters in Sir Adrian's family, and of course, the only recurring character is DCI St. Just. I needn't have worried, because Death of a Lit Chick features an equally engaging cast of characters. DCI St. Just travels to Dalmorton Castle in Scotland for a mystery writer's conference (he has been asked to attend as a speaker) and finds himself confronted with a gaggle of mystery writers, all with clashing personalities and huge egos, along with a publisher, agents, and a journalist. When ditzy superstar "chick lit" writer Kimberlee Kalder turns up dead, there is no shortage of suspects. St. Just is asked to assist the local constabulary with their investigations, which culminate in a hilariously over-the-top drawing room scene worthy of Agatha Christie. A cast of suspects including mystery writers is a challenge, as they all make things up for a living and seem unable to turn off the prevarication under interrogation. As St. Just unravels the web of secrets and lies, the deliciously complex plot comes to a logical yet surprising conclusion. Malliet manages to embrace the classic cozy mystery while satirizing its conventions with her sharp wit, and as we learn more about DCI St. Just, he becomes even more endearing. I'll be pre-ordering the next in the series as well.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Satire Gone Wrong
23 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I had high hopes for this "Cozy" book as a needed escape from the bad news we have been exposed to from every medium. Malliet attempted to satirize mystery writers and the genre and fell far short. Her detective St. Just is both shallow and pompous and the mystery writers that populate this book are superficial or shrill, sometimes both. Love interest, Portia De'Ath (this name was too precious) had no substance. It is incomprehensible to me why St, Just was interested in her or she in him for that matter. The best mystery writers have the ability to make us care about the fate of their creations. (Read Reginald Hills "The Price of Butchers Meat" ) Cardboard characters and a not very interesting plot line sink this humorless book. I have to admit the cover was great and it was downhill from there.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Batting One-thousand
25 Mar 2009
Format:Paperback
She's done it again - another hit. I was so intrigued by G.M. Malliet's "Death of a Cozy Writer, that I simply had to order her second St. Just Mystery. Glad I did. It was refreshing to see that DCI St. Just has moved beyond the first cast of characters( though I enjoyed them so much as well...) into new settings and characters. The theme of the story still revolves around mystery writers' conventions of sorts, but we've moved on to castles, hotel rooms and another murder, of all things! What could be better than playing the board game "Clue" for the first time on a stormy night?...."Death and the Lit Chick". It's a fun read, particularly by a wood fire with a glass of good port, and a refreshing retreat from today's wordly concerns. I highly recommend it to you!
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