If Looks Could Kill

The story starts off with free-lance journalist Bailey Weggins being called by her boss to investigate her nanny not answering a call, when they find a dead body. Even though she's a writer and not a cop, Bailey is given the task of investigating this murder. Bailey's character to me was much more style than substance. She's too cool, too sassy, and not much like a real person. Her relationships in this story fell flat and did not remotely interest me. It seemed as if they were there just so she could have love interests, but like her character had little substance to it.

The murder investigation had some good twists and turns to it, but in the end became a little predictable. At times it felt the misdirection was forced, but at least show more the logical progression of the story made sense. The story moved at a good pace. There was enough going on to keep it interesting, but there wasn't enough to really sink your teeth into.
Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity show less

A fun, breezy mystery narrated in first person by Bailey Weggins, crime and human interest freelancer for Gloss magazine in New York City. Bailey's friend and Gloss editor, Cat Jones discovers her nanny dead in her home and asks Bailey to investigate as she likes to hedge her bets and thinks Bailey might find some things the police overlook. Bailey's investigation takes her in several different directions, which gets kinda tedious after a point, particularly as most of them don't pan out, but her hip, slang-y voice keeps it from becoming too tiresome. Still, it took me several days longer to read these 416 pages than the 512 page Erica Spindler novel I read directly previous. There wasn't much suspense, just a lot of wandering around show more Manhattan and the surrounding countryside interviewing suspects. Although I had an inkling who the killer might be, I was still kept guessing and almost misdirected.
My biggest complaint is that unfortunately, there is a rather large spoiler in the cover art. Otherwise, it was a decent enough read. I'm not going to run out and purchase the rest of this series, but I will keep an eye out for them at garage sales and used book stores. show less

I don’t know how I keep getting sucked into these glamour magazine type novels, but here is another one. The writing was pretty good but the plot was a bit transparent. There was plenty of false suspects (including a strangely hostile husband), but in the end, it turned out to be a scorned wife. Not Cat, but someone else at the magazine, Leslie. Her husband was having an affair with the nanny and it became serious. Leslie didn’t think so and killed her, later staging the “attempted” killing of another magazine editor.

The author takes the reader through the streets of New York and the magazine trade as Bailey tries to solve the murder of her friend’s nanny . The trail leads to a surprising murderer and a new romance for Bailey . An enjoyable read.

This is the authors first fiction novel and the first in a projected Bailey Weggins series. I gotta admit that this is a book I would likely have never picked up on my own. I mostly read sci fi and fantasy and can occassionally be talked into reading an Oprah book of the month or some such novel. I read this book because it was part of the book club I am in. I liked it. It was an easy read, semi-funny, very entertaining and reasonably surprising as to the who-done-it. You could tell it was the authors first novel and that she is editor-in-chief for Cosmo magazine. She talks too much about desinger clothes, shoes-toe cleavage?-, food and restaurants for my taste and her characters are all extremely shallow-as I highly suspect the author show more is as well-but it was a good first try. show less

This book is a terrific mystery, with a totally captivating heroine. Bailey Weggins is smart, sexy, very funny, and the reader gets to solve the murder along with her!

Not a bad mystery, in a chick lit kind of way....