Gillian Roberts (1) (1939–)

Meet Amanda Pepper, a thirty year old school teacher who just broke up with yet another boyfriend...much to her mother's chagrin. When Amanda is not trying to quit boyfriends or smoking she is stumbling into deadly crime scenes. Only Liza Nichols is no stranger to Amanda. She was a coworker of Amanda's and engaged to wealthy, influential senator-hopeful, Hayden Cole. She was also found murdered on Ms. Pepper's living room floor. And that's how the trouble started.
When it comes to the antics show more of Amanda Pepper, you have to let reality go. There are things she does and says that I cannot imagine a sane person doing or saying. The misconception that she and Liza were very close, for example. Mrs. Nichols, Liza's own mother, was convinced Liza and Amanda were the best of best friends. Future mother-in-law, Mrs. Cole, thought they had been friends since childhood and knew each other as intimately as sisters. Why doesn't Amanda think that these misconceptions are super weird and why isn't she telling the police about them? As an aside, my doctor assumed I took an antibiotic before surgery and when I didn't correct her (because I hadn't), it bugged me for days.
When a second murder victim is found, again with ties to Amanda, she is assigned police protection in the form of a hunky date-material detective. Her sister and mother salivate at the thought of them as a couple.
Confessional: when they solve the crimes I wish Pepper had put two and two together sooner. Her knowledge of Shakespeare's Macbeth would have cracked the case wide open if she had just done her homework. show less

Second Read February 14-15, 2016.
First Read June 20-21, 2015. Book Review from First Read.

What fun to discover a novel with the setting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! AND it's the first title of a mystery series!! AND the main character, Amanda Pepper is an English teacher turned sleuth!!! Then what a delight to learn that the author was a former English teacher in Philly!!! It makes one wonder if she did any sleuthing for the Philadelphia Police Department(PPD) ;)

LOVED IT!

Two of my show more favorites in the descriptive category are:
(1) "During the great Coca-Cola switch-over, I tried to tell Beth (Amanda's older & married sister) to think of herself as the Classic form, to realize that she, like Coke, didn't have to reinvent herself. But she didn't see the connection."
(2) "I'd be cushioned by my lovely relatives, and I'd die of suffocation and boredom, instead."

And the author absolutely nailed the description of weather as shared by this example:
"I've never understood why they call this the temperate zone. It is anything but. With weather ranging from below zero to one hundred degrees, it should be called the schizoid belt.
But every so often, with totally intemperate zest, a day blooms with a nearly painful beauty. It's a day for believing your lover's promises, for rediscovering humanity and feeling kinship with it, for deciding not to join the Sun Belt defectors just yet.
Saturday was one of those. I looked out the guest room window at a sincerely blue sky dotted with cartoon fluffs of clouds. Such a spring day promises a mind-boggling, glorious summer, I'd lived long enough to know that this promise is a bald-faced lie. Still, days like this are so sweet prior knowledge becomes questionable. This is a brand new beginning, and anything's possible."

I enjoyed every aspect of the mystery and can't wait to read more titles in the series! show less

The titular Juan is Juan Angel Reyes, the young but unbending new physics teacher at Philly Prep, the lackluster private school where Amanda Pepper teaches English. Seniors are squirrely every year, as they face the deadlines of college applications, college essays and bringing up — or maintaining grades — amidst the whirl of senior activities. But Amanda senses that this year’s group is disturbingly more keyed up. Is that related to a series of pranks that are befalling Mr. Reyes? His show more students don’t like him, and he lets them know the feeling is mutual. He’s working to finish his Ph.D. and get out of high-school teaching as soon as possible — and he lets them know it.

But one prank goes too far. And then Amanda gets an anonymous note saying that even worse is to come.

I loved the first 12 Amanda Pepper mysteries, but somehow I hadn’t picked one up in years. What a mistake! I loved this suspenseful read, filled with a menacing threat from an unlikely source: “good kids.” I couldn’t put it down! The ending was a total shocker! Five stars, for sure. show less

Knowing in advance that you are about to read the last novel in a beloved series is very bittersweet. There is an urgency to once again visit with favorite characters, to learn of their newest adventures, to imagine solving the latest mystery with your favorite sleuth and the most profound hesitation to read "The End."

There have been so many delights in reading this series:
• Setting in Philadelphia, PA (city of my birth)
• Amanda Pepper, English Teacher Turned Sleuth
• Loved the furry show more face Macavity the cat [An English Teacher would certainly be aware that Macavity is a fictional character who is described in a poem in “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,” by T. S. Eliot. He also appears in Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.]
• It was such fun to continue guessing the true name of C.K. Mackenzie and follow the progression of friendship between Amanda and C.K.
• Loved all the interactions between Amanda and her students and Amanda and the school secretaries over the course of the series especially as some of the conversations brought very special memories of my teaching years.

I shall miss all the characters and the delights of the writing by Gillian Roberts. I haven't felt this way since reading "Assault & Beret" (the last novel of the Hat Shop Mystery series) by Jenn McKinlay. I understand that Gillian Roberts (pseudonyn of Judith Greber) has also written the Emma Howe Series so although it appears there are only two (2) novels, I will add them to my "to-read" list.

If you've enjoyed the series as much as I have, don't miss the interview available at this link:
https://mysteristas.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/judith-greber/ show less