Friday, March 20, 2009


TITLE: MURDER CAN STUNT YOUR GROWTH
AUTHOR: SELMA EICHLER
Publisher: Signet Mystery
Genre: Mystery series
ISBN:0-451-18514-5

Desiree Shapiro is a pleasingly plump P.I. and she has a big heart to match her plus size body. Business has a little slow but when Evelyn Cowin tries to hire Desiree she doesn't want to take the case. Not because she doesn't need the nice sized retainer, not because she is lazy but because it involves a dead ten year old girl. Evelyn's grandaughter and Desiree doesn't think she can help the elderly Cowin woman because as the death is explained to Desiree she think the police and family are right that Catherine Cowin died of natural causes.
Evcelyn persists and finally Desiree caves in and thinks maybe if she checks out a few things that the grieving grandmother will drop the murder plot and get on with her life.
Instead Desiree ends up with more questions than she receives answers to and she then one small out of place thing convinces her that murder is exactly what happened to Catherine Cowin. Now proving the who and why might just take more than milk and cookies or even Chinese Food, still if there is one thing that Desiree is good at it's getting a whiff on murder and like anyone with a heart as big as hers she isn't about to stop until someone pays for killing Catherine Cowin, the thing is there is this nephew that would stand out on anyone's suspect list, and Catherine's mother doesn't think her mother-inlaw knows what she is talking about when it concerns her daughter's murder and having lost her husband two years earlier she has enough grief to deal with, and of course the household seems to have fallen apart.
As the plot unfolds and we get to know the characters there seems to be a common thread of jealously and it becomes more apparant than ever to Desiree that Catherine had to die. This sickening revelation is what turns Desiree from sad and afraid of the truth to angry and wanting justice served.
MURDER CAN STUNT YOUR GROWTH by Selma Eichler is one of the best books in this series and this series is good, no better than good it's all the a top list series with a delighful, spunky, real woman heroine that know how to take a big bite out of life, love and murder.
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Pamela James

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