High Five by Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets writes two mystery series, the Dead-End Job mysteries and the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries. Read the first chapter and check out the book trailer for “Pumped for Murder” at www.elaineviets.com  

High Five
By Elaine Viets

Which book marks the turning point in a mystery series?

I’ve heard experts argue that book 2, book 3, or even 5 is the crucial novel.

I’m book 10 in my Dead-End Job mystery series, and I want Helen Hawthorne to keep working those lousy jobs.

Helen is running from the court and her ex-husband, Rob. The divorce judge gave Helen’s unfaithful husband half her future income. Helen, an executive who once made six figures, ran to South Florida and worked dead-end jobs to avoid paying Rob.

“Shop till You Drop,” my first Dead-End Job mystery, had a lucky start in 2003.

It was nominated for an Agatha Award.

Book 2 can be hurt by a sophomore slump. “Murder Between the Covers,” my second DEJ mystery, survived that test. Helen and I worked at a bookstore and loved that job.

The third mystery can be a series killer, said Molly Weston, reviewer and author escort. “Authors have time to write, rewrite and polish book 1 before sending it out. While they wait for it to sell, authors write book 2. Again, plenty of time to refine. Then book 1 sells and the authors have to market it and write book 3. Often there’s no time to refine.”

“Dying to Call You,” my third Dead-End Job mystery, made it over that hurdle.

Helen and I sold septic tank cleaner in a telephone boiler room. That got us cursed from Maine to California.

“Dying to Call You” is both darker and more hopeful than my first two DEJ novels. That’s where Helen met Phil Sagemont while tending bar undercover. Er, uncovered. She was a topless bartender trying to find a killer. A mortified Helen covered herself with soda bottles.

(No, I didn’t work that dead-end job.)

Book 5 is the true turning point, says mystery reviewer Oline Cogdill. That’s when series either grow stronger or falter. “Murder Unleashed” was my fifth DEJ mystery. Helen and I worked in a dog boutique.

That novel was definitely a turning point. My paperback series was first published in hardback.

Did I write a “better” book?

No. I expected “Murder Unleashed” would be a paperback. My publisher made it hardcover.

For “Murder with Reservations,” Helen and I cleaned 38 hotel rooms and scrubbed 17 toilets a day – and learned that hotel maids barely earn minimum wage. “If everyone tipped me a dollar a room, it would make a big difference,” one said.

“I’m trying to stay off welfare. I want my daughter to be proud of me.”

We did no heavy lifting at the snobbish country club for “Clubbed to Death,” but the club members were a burden. One doctor flew into a rage when he heard his wife might see their  monthly bill. He’d spent $3,000 to help his office manager “perform better.”

At what? I wondered.

For “Killer Cuts,” Helen and I were gofers at a Miami hair salon where color and a cut were $300. The super rich could be amazingly cheap. One woman tipped her stylist six Burger King coupons when he should have had $60.

“Why do you put up with her?” I asked him.

“She amuses me,” he said. “And when she doesn’t, I’ll dye her hair orange.”

“Half-Price Homicide,” book 9, was a milestone. Helen overcame her bitterness and married Phil in a dramatic wedding. Helen and I worked at a designer consignment shop where women worshiped labels like True Religion.

Book 10, “Pumped for Murder,” brings me to a double crossroads. Helen Hawthorne is no longer on the run from her awful ex. She is a Floridian now. She and Phil have started Coronado Investigations. Phil already has his private eye license.

Helen is a trainee. She still works dead-end jobs – as a private investigator.

Their first client is a wife whose husband has an intense interest in working out – and no interest in her. Helen works as a receptionist at his gym and explores the world of extreme bodybuilding. Coronado Investigations also struggles with a 1986 cold case, a suicide that might be murder.

Their landlady, Margery Flax, says, “I love it that Florida private investigators are licensed by the Department of Agriculture. They regulate vegetables, fruit, milk, pawnbrokers, dance studios, shellfish and pest control.”

“I assume we come under pest control,” Phil said.

“Should be food service, as often as your wife is in the soup,” Margery said.

        

The Perfect Fake and the Real Thing by Elaine Viets

 

Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series.  Her Dead-End Job series is a satiric look at a serious subject – the minimum-wage world. Elaine and her character, Helen Hawthorne, work a different low-paying job each book, from  telemarketer to hotel maid. Publishers Weekly called her hardcover debut  “wry social commentary.” Elaine’s second series features St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus in The Fashion Hound Murders.  The debut, Dying in Style, tied with Stephen King on the Independent Mystery Booksellers bestseller list.  Elaine won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards.

The Perfect Fake and the Real Thing
By Elaine Viets

 
Retail offers endless opportunities for rudeness. I should know. I’ve had jobs in shops on and off since I was 16. I’ve worked with customers – and for bosses – who inspired me to craft murderous tales where they died horribly.

But retail isn’t always nasty. Occasionally, I see incredible acts of kindness.

I did the research for “Half-Price Homicide” at Hibiscus Place Emporium, a Fort Lauderdale designer consignment shop. When I was there, the store was owned by Manny Lopez, a young man from Ecuador. Manny taught me that real Panama hats are actually made in his country, not Panama.

Manny also possessed amazing tact. Hibiscus Place sells designer purses on consignment. Many of these purses cost $500 to $3,000 new. To me, anything that costs $3,000 should have wheels and a motor, but I’m not a fashionista.

Hibiscus Place clients would bring in expensive designer purses that were barely used – sometimes still in the original boxes – for consignment sale. They got half the selling price and Manny got the other. It was a good system. Many women will not leave the house without a purse sporting a designer logo.

But designer purses are easy to fake. Manny saw a lot of those, too. He refused to sell them at his store. His customers could tell the subtle differences between the genuine article and the imitation.

One afternoon, I watched Manny with a sweet-looking older woman who wanted to sell two fake purses.

The purses were fake – even I could see that, across the shop – and there was nothing subtle about these imposters. Their dull metal trim and poorly matched print fabric were two of the more obvious giveaways.

But the fake purses had been gifts from the woman’s son, and she treasured them. She had no clue they weren’t real designer bags. She wasn’t trying to cheat anyone.

The scene with Manny and the woman was so amazing, I wished I’d taped it. Instead, I put it in my ninth Dead-End Job mystery, “Half-Price Homicide.”

In the novel, the fictional store owner is named Vera and Helen Hawthorne is working yet another dead-end job at the designer consignment store. Here’s the scene from “Half-Price Homicide.”

***

A short, sturdy woman entered the shop. She looked like the perfect grandmother. Her blue pantsuit had a tabby cat on the front. She had fluffy white hair and a sweet smile. She opened a plastic grocery bag and brought out a purse wrapped in a white towel.

Perfect Grandma carefully peeled away the towel and said reverently, “This is a genuine Louis Vuitton.”

Helen could tell it was a fake and a poor one at that. The classic brown monogram Vuitton bag had missing stitches on the leather handle tabs. The brass fittings were dull and the nylon zipper looked cheap.

“Was it a gift?” Vera asked.

“Oh, yes,” Perfect Grandma said. “My dear son Edward and his wife brought it home from their Caribbean cruise. They bought me two designer handbags.” Her face was pink with pride. “I wouldn’t sell this one except that my Social Security doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. And I have my Gucci.” She patted another obvious imitation.

“The Louis Vuitton is a beautiful purse,” Vera said. She held it up and pretended to admire it. “I wish I could buy it, but we’re overstocked right now. But thank you for bringing it here.”

“Maybe later,” Perfect Grandma said, and swaddled the purse like a newborn.

***

Manny had no retail reason to be kind to Perfect Grandma. She couldn’t even afford to buy his real designer purses at Hibiscus Place. He let her keep her pride and her illusions.

She’ll never know what Manny did for her. I hope nobody tells her the truth about sonny boy’s gifts.

“Half-Price Homicide” will be in stores May 4. To order your copy go to www.elaineviets.com.   If you’d your copy autographed, choose Mystery Lovers Bookshop from the three stores on my home page. 

 

(Starred review) Half-Price Homicide: A Dead-End Job Mystery Elaine Viets. NAL/Obsidian, $22.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-451-22989-2

A posh Fort Lauderdale, Fla., resale shop provides the snazzy scene of the crime in Viets's superior ninth mystery starring Helen Hawthorne, the queen of dead-end jobs and magnet for murder (after 2009's Killer Cuts). Helen and Vera Salinda, the owner of Snapdragon's Second Thoughts, are shocked when Chrissy Martlet, a wealthy developer's sexy trophy wife, is found fatally bonked on the head with a Limoges pineapple, then hung with a Gucci scarf after trying to sell Vera some of her designer goods. Identifying Chrissy's killer as well as the culprit who bashes in the head of a model friend with a beer bottle tests Helen's sleuthing abilities to the limit. A teasing plot twist serves up a reminder that even if her greedy ex-husband, Rob, might finally stop pestering her and better jobs appear, there are still mountains to climb before Helen can rest easy with Phil, her PI honey. Viets doesn't waste a word in this tight, fast-paced installment as she deftly balances comedy and tragedy.(May)
 

A Passion Pit Made Me a Novelist by Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series.

Her Dead-End Job series is a satiric look at a serious subject – the minimum-wage world. Elaine and her character, Helen Hawthorne, work a different low-paying job each book, from telemarketer to hotel maid. Publishers Weekly called her hardcover debut “wry social commentary.” Killer Cuts, set at a South Florida hair salon, is her eighth Dead-End Job.






























Elaine’s second series features St. Louis mystery shopper Josie Marcus in The Fashion Hound Murders. The debut, Dying in Style, tied with Stephen King on the Independent Mystery Booksellers bestseller list.Elaine won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards.







You can check out the first chapter of “The Fashion Hound Murders” at www.elaineviets.com To order your autographed copy of the fifth Josie Marcus mystery, go to http://tinyurl.com/yfah94w


Elaine Viets A Passion Pit Made Me a Novelist

I admit it. I owe my career as a novelist to summer nights of sex and sin. My thirteenth mystery novel is published this month. “The Fashion Hound Murders” features mystery shopper Josie Marcus. Josie gets what seems to be an easy assignment, looking at puppies. But when one store turns out to sell puppy mill pets and a helpful clerk is murdered, Josie realizes this job could bite back. I promise it’s an informative, entertaining read.

But back to the passion pit. When I was growing up, drive-in movies were evil. Preachers called them “passion pits.” The nuns at my school said that girls who went to drive-ins with boys got bad reputations.

They also got a whole lot of dates.

The more adults protested, the more fascinating drive-ins seemed to me.

In fact, I became a novelist thanks to the local drive-in movie.

If you’ve never been to one, drive-ins were big outdoor movie theaters with giant movie screens. People paid about a dollar a carload. You could cram eight or ten kids into an airless car. Then you pulled your car up to a speaker on a metal pole, and hung the speaker on the edge of the rolled-down window.

This was hot stuff. Very hot, especially in August in St. Louis. Imagine sitting in an un-air-conditioned car for hours on a summer night. You can see why drive-ins died.

The best part, sometimes better than the movie, was the trip to the concession stand for cold soda, popcorn and hot dogs.

We lived in the suburb of St. Ann when I was growing up, across from the main screen of a drive-in movie. I could see it from my room. I slept in the top bunk, which gave me a clear view of the movie screen. I couldn’t hear a word, but I could see the story in Technicolor. I saw actresses with six-foot lips smooching leading men. Mushy stuff. Cowboys galloped across the screen. Comedians did prat falls to silent laughter. Murders were committed in living color and dead silence.

Every night, I watched the soundless movies and wrote my own dialogue in my head.

Were my stories better than the actual movies?

I doubt it. They always put me to sleep.

But my latest Josie Marcus novel should keep you awake all night – reading, of course.