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Deadly Advice (An Advice Column Mystery) |
Author: Roberta Isleib
Published: 2007-03-06 |
List price: $6.99
Our price: $6.99
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As of: November 20th, 2008 04:29:05 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 A great new series - I am psyched!
Deadly Advice is the first book I've read by this author and I'd give it a WOW. The author is right up there with some of my other faves, like Susan Conant and Susan Wittig Albert. She provides a likeable but slightly flawed heroine, a supporting cast of interesting characters, a peek behind the psychotherapy curtain and (best of all) a suspenseful, plausible plot. I have to admit I stopped reading one night because I didn't want to get too spooked to sleep. Wow! And we get just the proper blend of clues so we can guess the villain (or at least pick out the best candidates) but understand why the heroine missed them all.
What I especially like is the way Isleib took all the traditional cozy ingredients but put them together to create a fresh, intelligent mystery that doesn't like a repetition of a tired formula. For instance, many heroines get warned to stop meddling. But Rebecca gets warned she's "acting out." That has to be a first. And in the context of the mystery, that advice sounds pretty silly.
In fact, one of the book's strengths is the author's honest view of the therapy profession. We don't get a Sopranos-style ionic therapist. The heroine's own therapy seems negative: she's worried about being late and her therapist seems to raise doubts, not build confidence. Who wants to pay for this?
I'm already planning to read the rest of the series. Alas, I don't trust the heroine's therapeutic skills to deal with withdrawal symptoms.
 An interesting twist
This was an interesting twist on the amateur sleuth -- a psychologist who writes an advice column. While the writing was fine, and the mystery was well-paced, I thought the protagonist was more than a little annoying. Her advice was obvious and way too pat to make me feel she was a deep and insightful therapist. And I saw the "whodunnit" coming a mile away. All the same, I will seek out more by this author because I enjoyed the twists and turns.
Well Done
Dr. Rebecca Butterman is used to helping people - she's a clinical psychologist and the author of an on-line advice column, so when Madeline, her next door neighbor is found dead from an apparent suicide, Rebecca wonders if she could have done something to help her. When Madeline's mother insists it couldn't be suicide, Rebecca agrees to look into the death. Rebecca soon realizes that Madeline was not all she seemed to be and as she investigates the on-line dating world for a writing assignment, she realizes the two are linked. The more she looks into both cases, the more she puts herself into danger, danger she may not escape from.
"Deadly Advice" is a well written and well plotted mystery. Rebecca is a nicely done, complex heroine, recently divorced and just starting to get her life back together. She is not perfect and her own personal therapy sessions help develop her character. While her advice column is interesting to read about, as were her attempts at on-line dating, what I liked best about the book were the details about her home life - her cooking, her taking in Madeline's cat, and her neighbors and the condo meetings they had. Rebecca's neighbors - especially Mts. Dunbarton, Peter Morgan, and Babette Fnster - are all well done. The mystery itself is well written and well plotted with plenty of red herrings and readers will have a hard time figuring out who the killer is. While author Roberta Isleib flirts with the almost standard mystery plot device of a romance between Rebecca and Detective Jack Meigs, she adds a welcome wrinkle to that formula. And, while the book seems on the surface to be a cozy mystery, it's a bit too gritty to fit that definition.
"Deadly Advice" is well done.
More than a cozy
Deadly Advice by Roberta Isleib is a fast, page turning read. The protagonist is Dr. Rebecca Butterman who is a psychologist. She also writes an online advise column. Don't expect to read a story about a psychologist who has all the answers. There is so much more to Rebecca. Moving into the condo community after the divorce from her husband, Rebecca leads a busy life. When her neighbor next door is found dead, Rebecca is shocked and also feels guilty for not being friendlier and getting to know the woman who died, Madeline, better.
Madeline's mother asks Rebecca if she will help in finding out what happened to Madeline. The police are claiming suicide, Rebecca is not so sure. She begins her journey to find out who Madeline really was and enters the world of internet dating.
The author weaves an intricate story of deception and how events in ones life may affect them. My only problem with this book was there were too many psychological comments that could have been left out of a mystery novel. I recommend this book. I do not consider it a cozy but a unique mystery .
More Please
Wow! As an ardent mystery reader, GUPPY mystery writer, AND a Pyschotherapist, I loved this new series. I stumbled onto the first, Deadly Advice and then grabbed the next one. Rebecca rings true as a therapist who has relationship problems, both present and past. The writing is excellant and, while the plot has been done before, I didn't guess 'who done it' until the villian was revealed. And I usually see it coming. I can not wait for the next one. Thanks Roberta.
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