Dead Over Heels

Overview

Part-time librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden never liked Detective Sergeant Jack Burns, but she also never wanted to see him dead-- especially not dropped from a plane right into her own backyard. But when other strange things happen around her, ranging from peculiar (her irascible cat turns up wearing a pink ribbon) to violent (her assistant at the library is attacked) to potentially deadly (her former lover is stabbed), she must decipher the personal message in the madness before it's too late.

Editorial Reviews

This uninspired addition to the Aurora Teagarden series (The Julius House, etc.) opens memorably with Lawrenceton, Ga.'s premiere librarian adjusting her lawn chair and observing Angel Youngblood, her bodyguard and all-around helper, cut the grass. From a plane that has been circling overhead drops the recently dead body of Detective Sergeant Jack Burns, Aurora's local law-enforcement nemesis. Aurora, or Roe as her friends call her, sets out to find out who killed him and why her garden was targeted for the corpse. As she conducts her unorthodox search, she has the nagging thought that perhaps the death has something to do with Angel or her husband, Shelby, or perhaps with her own husband, Martin, and his mysterious and dangerous past. She is not reassured when the FBI is called in, nor when several other murders are committed. In between visiting crime scenes and attending company banquets (the one-dimensional Martin is a bigshot exec), Roe also deals with the post-honeymoon letdown of her two-year-old marriage and ponders the strangely intimate relationship she has developed with her bodyguards. True Teagarden enthusiasts may feel rewarded by this latest episode, but Harris is a bit too down to earth this time out?the suspense barely cranks up before the solution descends with a thud not unlike that of Jack Burns's corpse. (Nov.)

Author Information

Bio of Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris, who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years, is a native of Mississippi. Born and raised in the Delta, she began training for her career as soon as she could hold a pencil. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and (later) teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, and graduated to books a few years later. After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris decided to establish a series. She began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, which garnered an Agatha nomination. Harris's protagonist, a diminutive Georgia librarian whose life never turns out quite the way she planned, kept Harris busy for several books, but finally Harris (and Aurora) grew restless. The result of this restlessness was the much edgier Shakespeare series -- set not in England, but in rural Arkansas. The heroine of the Shakespeare books is Lily Bard, a tough and taciturn woman whose life has been permanently reshaped by a terrible crime and its consequences. In Shakespeare's Landlord, the first in the series, Lily is caught at a moment when the shell she's built around herself is just beginning to crack, and the books capture Lily's emotional re-entry into the world, while also being sound mysteries. Harris's latest venture is a series about a telepathic barmaid in southern Louisiana. The first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony for best paperback mystery of 2001. Each book about Sookie Stackhouse (and her dealings with vampires and werewolves and other creatures of the night) has gathered more readers to enjoy the books' unique blend of mystery, humor, romance, and the supernatural. The Sookie books are also being read in Japan, Spain, Greece, and Great Britain. In addition to her work as a writer, Harris is married and the mother to three children. A former weight lifter and karate student, she is an avid reader and cinemaphile. She is a member of the vestry of St. James Episcopal Church. Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. (c) 2004 Charlaine Harris

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Additional Info

Imprint

Penguin

Filesize

1.56 MB

Number of Pages

272

eBook ISBN

9781436243452