Killer Hair: A Crime of Fashion (Crime of Fashion Mystery)
Home of the helmet hairdo and Congressional comb-over, Washington, D.C. is a hotbed of fashion faux pas. If anyone should know, it’s “Crimes of Fashion” columnist Lacey Smithsonian. She dishes out advice to the scandal-scorched and clothing-clueless, doing her part to change this town-one fashion victim at a time…
An up-and-coming stylist, Angie Woods had a reputation for rescuing down-and-out looks-and careers-all with a pair of scissors. But when Angie is found with a drastic haircu
A Really Bad Hair Day,
Lacey Smithsonian, fashion reporter for the Eye Street Observer has been asked by her hair stylist Stella Lake to investigate the death of another hair stylist, Angie Woods.
Angie was found sitting in the chair at her work station, with her waist length hair hacked off and her wrists cut. The police have already declared it to be a suicide and are no longer interested in investigating.
At first Lacey doesn’t want to investigate, but things look suspicious to her and since the police won’t investigate, she’s going to have to.
Angie Woods had recently become famous for the make over of Marcia Robinson, a woman who was being investigated by a special prosecutor over her involvement with congressmen and a web site she had.
Could this be the reason for the murder? Did Marcia tell her something while getting her make over. Or was it her employers at Styletto’s, Boyd Radford, the sexist pig who grants managerial promotions to anyone who sleeps with him, everyone says Angie turned him down. His soon to be ex-wife Josephine, who is anxious to watch out for her share of the business, or his son Beau, (called shampoo boy) by everyone at the salon.
What about Leonardo, another stylist who was furious with Angie because Marcia was supposed to be his client, but in a fit of pique, he had walked out that day and Angie had been the only stylist available when she came in.
Then Lacey gets a call from another stylist, Tammi White at another Syletto’s salon who tells her Angie gave her something before she died. But before Lacey can get to the salon, Tammi is found dead in her chair. (Also a suicide).
Lacey can’t convince the police, or Victor Donovan, (a former sheriff from Colorado) that Lacey has lusted after for years, that it was murder. After all, what happened to the weapon and why were both Angie’s and Tammi’s long, long hair missing from the salons.
Things move fast as Lacey tries to solve the crimes, but that doesn’t prevent more murders from occurring and now she has to worry that her paper will fire her for investigating a murder when she should be writing her fashion column.
Highlights:
This book is very funny. Lacey and her friends Stella & Brooke are very likeable.
I like her fellow reporters, especially Tony Trujillo
Victor is the guy Lacey has been dreaming about for years, even though all they shared was one kiss at a party. I like the interaction between them.
The mystery is interesting. A lot of suspects, but a logical killer. Lacey does real investigating, not just being there when the killer suddenly decides they want to confess.
Lowlights:
No Low Lights. Should be a good series.
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|Comment by Beth D — February 6, 2012 @ 1:26 am
A great start in this new mystery series,
Nobody wants to make an enemy of their hairdresser, so when her stylist Stella Lake asks her friend Lacey Smithsonian to attend a viewing, she goes. The dead woman is a young hairdresser named Angie who has a bald do and cut wrists. The police think she committed suicide especially with the bloody note written on her mirror in the salon. Stella knows that Angie was murdered and she wants her reporter friend Lacey to prove it.
Lacey is a fashion columnist not an investigative reporter and at first rejects the idea out of hand. After thinking about it, she realizes that Angie’s hair is missing. She writes a column about Angie and through a combination of circumstances finds herself in the middle of the investigation especially when another hair dresser dies and Lacey is the only one who sees the link. She continues to dig for information and ends up being stalked by a killer who wants to make her his next victim.
The protagonist’s running commentary on social mores in Washington D.C. is hilarious and her pithy observations about fashion and its relationship with scandal, the law and murder will have readers in tears of laughter (don’t wear fashionable mascara). The who-done-it is intelligently plotted and there is a plethora of suspects who could be the guilty party. The audience will go crazy trying to figure out who the killer is while the heroine goes nuts trying to figure out if a sexy security guard from her past is interested in her or her murder theory.
Harriet Klausner
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|Comment by Harriet Klausner — February 6, 2012 @ 1:45 am
So good I tell strangers about it.,
I loved this book. The characters are slightly quirky and the dialogue is snappy enough to remind me of those wonderful old romantic comedies–and in which Lacey’s clothes would fit pefectly.
I have passed this around two writers critique groups, and told total strangers about it in the bookstore.
If you’re looking for a light read, not much blood and gore, and characters that make you laugh (one believes Washington DC men are victims of a plot that blocks pheromones, rendering men unattracted to the women in town) you’ll appreciate Ellen Byerrum’s launch of Lacey Smithsonian. This is a hoot!
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|Comment by Quirkywriter "karieo" — February 6, 2012 @ 2:10 am