Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill: A Novel

In her fourth novel, N.M. Kelby takes a former B-movie actress, a Barry Manilow impersonator, a winged circus entertainer descended from the real Macbeth, a pet vulture, and fried snack cakes, mixes all them up with a whole bunch of stuff you probably wouldn't believe if I listed it, and throws them together into a Florida community with a mysterious past. If you think this sounds like a big fat mess, you haven't read this book, which will probably be the best summer read ever. It's great fun, sometimes poignant, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

From the book jacket: Take a slasher-movie actress, a Scottish circus clown, an FBI school dropout, a blind heiress, a junk-food-loving millionaire developer, and a Buddha-quoting bluesman, add a couple of murders in a normally sedate retirement community in south Florida … It all goes down as easy as a Key lime pie martini, the signature drink of the Bad Girl’s Bar & Grill.

My reactions
Reminds me of Carl Hiassen, but not quite so well written. Still it’s a fun, ridiculous romp of a tale that kept me entertained and engaged despite its total outlandishness. Frankly, none of these characters made sense to me, and the plot was completely unbelievable. But I did laugh out loud a few times and it was a fast read.

If you’re looking show more for a cozy mystery… well this is more gristly than that. If you want a hard-boiled crime novel … well this is too quirky for that. It doesn’t fit the bill for a suspense thriller either, because there is little suspense. The biggest mystery, as far as I’m concerned, is how Kelby came up with this crazy story.

Like Hiaasen, Kelby does impart a message about husbanding the natural environment and about the greed of developers. show less

Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Laurence Shames she's not..but this is a light, funny, and entertaining read. I was able to get through it in less than 8 hours.

It's Florida, a retirement community once known as the Tiki Gardens, with a Tiki Bar in its midst:

*Danni the bar owner is trying to save the mangroves from becoming a golf course.

*Whit & his attorney, Bill are up to no good...they want the land the bar is on & the mangroves.

*Sofia, Whit's blind daughter, is trying to work things out with her husband, who wants her dead and her inheritance much to the consternation of

*Wilson the security guard, her "protector", who has a penchant for singing Beach Boys tunes.

*Solas McKay Kilt wearing, Scots Warrior/puppet master who has come to show more avenge the death of his homeless brother Peter (remains were found in the dumpster behind the bar)....who is accompanied by

*Karla & Marie the very tall, grey braided Swedish twin crones who love to shout "Ta-Da!"

*Mandy the shi tzu that looks like Barry Manilow

*Poe the Vulture

*The residents of the "community" that like to play act "Mayberry".

It's not deep, but it works. show less

Another "DNF" or Did Not Finish. Too many weird characters with no one in the entire book who was in any way sane or normal. I don't need a lot, but my logical soul does need at least one "normal" character, one who reacts to death as awful, not interesting, one who doesn't wander off on the beach, in the rain, when she's blind. Wasn't my style, which I might have known since it is compared to Carl Hiaasen, another author too weird for me.

I really liked this book. It was a mystery with some heart.

N.M. Kelby beckons us into her quirky and inventive world once again and makes us glad we entered.