Summer

30 March 2009

MURDER WITH RESERVATIONS: A Dead-End Job Mystery - Elaine Viets

I love having cozy mysteries on Mt Git'r'Read's shelves. They are perfect purse book size, they cheer me up, and they are fast reads. Towards the end of the month, I want to squeeze just one more book on my monthly book journal. This one fit the bill wonderfully.
Helen Hawthorne is still on the run from her loser deadbeat ex-husband. He was the one who didn't work and philandered around while she worked her heinie off and stayed true. She caught him in the act with their neighbor (6 books ago) and she took it out on his SUV. The judge had the gall to award the sleaze ex with alimony. Helen hit the trail and has been living in Florida and working a succession of paid under the table jobs to keep a low profile and hide from her ex who is searching her out for what he thinks is rightfully his.
Now Helen is working at the Full Moon Hotel as a maid. She just wants to do her back breaking job and go home to her nice boyfriend.
Nope, the ex is hot on her trail and shows up at the hotel to look for her.
AND she finds a body of a fellow maid in the Dumpster and all hope of anonymity meanders away. There's also a hunt on for $150,000 that was never found after a bank robber stowed away in the hotel six months ago. Bodies, missing money, swindlers.....a good mix for a good cozy mystery.
Elaine Viets raises awareness as well as writes a fab book. Reading this one gave me wicked flashbacks when I used to clean rooms when I was in high school and college at a motel in my hometown.....people can be SLOBS! I have huge respect for the profession and make sure I leave tips, pick up my own towels, generally don't leave a mess for these hard working people who clean up after our stay. Do many clean their home each and every day? That's what these folks do many many times a day. A gazillion bathrooms to scrub, a multitude of beds to make, floors to vacuum and mop....you get the idea I feel a little passionate about the subject.

Four back breaking job beans....










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