Cue the Easter Bunny

Grace Smith has always been one of my favourite of the fraught, vaguely madcap female private detective sub-genre for a bunch of different reasons.

Firstly I love Grace herself. Slightly bats definitely, sometimes refreshingly stupid, often times bordering on out of control, there's something refreshingly real and unmanufactured about Grace. She's the sort of girl you could see yourself having a drink with and whilst you might be a bit worried about the state of your shoes at the end of the night, your personal ego's not going to come away feeling somewhat underbaked.

Secondly I really love the supporting cast, particularly the other staff at the Detective Agency that Grace works at, most of whom are somewhat mildly bats in their own show more right.

Lastly I really like the plots of the books, and CUE THE EASTER BUNNY is no disappointment in those stakes, although, to be honest, the ongoing jokes about rabbits got dangerously close to being the biggest attraction.

I've been dodging the inevitable here I guess - is she the English Evanovich? Hate these sorts of comparisons as, apart from the coincidence of similar sorts of central characters - they are different books about different people in a completely different location. Given the choice, if it's my money being shelled out, Grace Smith is a better bet. None of that coy will she / won't she and with which bloke (which last time I tried a Plum book was still dragging on....). With Grace Smith there's nothing coy or cutsey - she is what she is, her love life is as on and off again as she bloody well wants it to be and besides, it's not the only thing in this girls life.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/cue-easter-bunny-liz-evans show less

Fabulous. These books are wonderfully humourous without being the slightest bit "light". Some dark and heavy stuff though there's plenty of sunshine, and a lot of characters so weird they could be real. I like Grace a lot, I want to hit her over the head and tell her not to do things like this, but she wouldn't be the same if she'd take my advice.

I consider Liz Evans to be the English Janet Evanovich in that her books are full of humour and their main character has a similar zany charm.
At the start of this one Grace Smith our heroine,is disguised as a seven-foot tall Easter Bunny. (don't ask) I quote " Life is tough for rabbits. Apart from the problems of constantly having to keep a lookout for natural enemies,there's heatstroke,thirst,and having the hassle of getting a pair of twelve-inch ears through the doorframe to the ladies,loo.".
Quite a few laughs in the course of the book and at the same time a decent plot to carry things along.
Grace is a detective working free-lance for Vetch Investigations,in the English seaside town of Seatoun. Things are quiet so she takes a job as show more an Easter Bunny for the Tourist Board. She becomes the first bunny rabbit in the history of the town to be arrested on a charge of GBH. It is then that she takes on a case of trying to find who is sending a number of threatening letters to the husband of a TV soap star. Swiftly things begin to take a much darker direction and Grace finds herself in several dangerous situations. show less

Gradually I became aware I was being watched. Looking down, I found a pair of brown eyes fixed intently on me.
'You're the bunny lady.'
'No, I'm not.'
Yes, you are. Look, it's the bunny lady.'
I was surrounded by a knee-high audience. All throwing questions at me. 'Why aren't you a bunny anymore?' ;Where are your eggs? Can I have one?' 'Can you paint my face like a bunny?' By this time, the parents had realised something was going on and were giving me half-curious smiles. 'Sorry,' I said. 'Mistaken identity. Must have been some other fluffy-tailed person. Excuse me.'

After a long dry spell with no cases, Grace is desperate enough to dress up as a Easter bunny and hand out leaflets for the council. But then she is asked by a woman to find show more out who is sending threatening letters to her actor son, without letting him or his soap-star wife know what is happening, and her friend O'Hara asks her to help him find out what happened to a teenage girl who went missing during her paper round fourteen years before. Grace is plagued by rabbits as she investigates these cases, with pictures of her in costume appearing on posters and t-shirts around town, and the soap-star's pet rabbit being rather too friendly. Enjoyable, but the first book in the series is still my favourite. show less

I quite liked this book (I'm of the school of thought that a 3* rating is not a bad thing) and will grab the authors other works if I come across them. Loved the main character but felt like the pacing was off a bit. I feel like a really good editor could make this book better, tighten it up a bit, not to mention correct some of the paragraphing issues.

PI Grace Smith is back in her latest adventure, and she is as broke as ever! To remedy this situation, she finds herself dressing up like a rabbit. Then having to investigate two cases at the same time, she has to face more fiends: a (very friendly) rabbit, some crazed soap stars and a very dangerously seductive potential boyfriend. This is a very good read, there is lots of action and a good 'noir' plot.