Arlene McFarlane

If you are looking for crazy antics in the style of Stephanie Plum then you’ll want to check out Murder, Curlers, and Cream by Arlene McFalane. If you are looking for a traditional cozy mystery, this one may not be for you.

I really enjoyed it because I was a fan of Janet Evanovich, but stopped reading her around book 17 because I just couldn’t handle the love triangle anymore, and I’ve been looking for a new series to take its place. A love triangle hasn’t started up yet in the show more series, but it looks like in book two, Jock deMarco will start working at Valentine’s salon, so we shall see if a love triangle develops between those two and Detective Romero. As long as it’s well written and doesn’t drag on then I’m good.

The crazy antics of her employees and the locals who stop by are what really had me enjoying this book. Max is awesome and I can’t wait to read more of his snark, and I am also looking forward to more of Val’s meddling mom. Phylis was a horrible character, but McFarlane wrote her so well! And what Phylis did to the customers added a cringe worthy level of humor to the book.

If you’re looking for a light mystery with lots of steamy thoughts of sex, snarky employees, buildings on fire, kidnappings, and a lot more crazy shenanigans then you will want to start reading the Valentine Beaumont Mysteries! show less

Val owns a beauty salon that is having financial problems when one of their wealthy loyal clients is murdered on premises. The murder of the nasty lady in her salon makes her want to solve the case by doing every stupid thing in the book. Every person who came in the shop the day of the murder had some connection to the victim (what are the chances?) So she aggressively confronts each of them.

Besides this unbelievable plot let's look at what we are supposed to support as our heroine. One show more revealing incident - Val has a snarky confrontation with the hot detective, jumps in her car, takes off at high speed, takes a near swipe at a parked car, a sharp left turn (hopefully nothing was coming), jumps the curb and stops inches from a fire hydrant. Our heroine! Way to go.

The only saving grace was the climax which Val didn't see coming despite all her sleuthing. She actually pulled together enough to have one a decent scene. But this was not enough for me to want to read any more of this series.

An aside - Val decides she needs some protection so she decides on karate. First class, sensei introduces himself and proceeds to flip her, multiple times. My grandson takes karate and if that had been his first class, the sensei would have been sued out of business. show less

This was such a fun read! I new it would be as soon as I saw the cover. It had laugh out loud moments, and I was even forced to roll my eyes a time or two. If you're looking for something to keep your attention on the bus or plane, this book will do it, you won't even care who crowed the bus/plane is.

I liked the start where you come in slap bang in the middle of the murder investigation. But then pages and pages were devoted to the romance (or obsessive non-romance rather) and the attributes of the lead police detective. I put the book down at that point!