Murder Between the Covers (A Dead-End Job Mystery #2) by Elaine Viets

From Anthony and Agatha Award-winning author Elaine Viets—the thrilling mystery series about one woman trying to make a living... while other people are making a killing.

Helen Hawthorne is still on the run because of her refusal to pay her worthless ex-husband alimony. But a girl’s gotta eat…and pay rent, utilities, etc. So she’s taken a cash-paying job at Fort Lauderdale’s own Page Turners bookstore. And while the job is decent enough, the owner of the store is anything but.

Page Turner III is a boor with more money than brains: he’s cheating on his wife while running his family business into the ground and has a list of enemies longer than any bestseller. So when he turns up dead, no one is too surprised. What is surprising is where—in the bed of Helen’s glamorous gal pal Peggy, whose usual bedmates are more cultured, refined…and still breathing.

Worse still, it turns out that Peggy once had a tryst with the late Mr. Turner that ended quite badly, with a scorned Peggy promising the lothario payback—and someone is making it look like she finally collected. With Peggy as the prime suspect in a murder, it’s up to Helen to prove her friend innocent before the police throw the book at her…

Praise for the Dead-End Job Mysteries by Anthony and Agatha Award-winning author Elaine Viets

“A stubborn and intelligent heroine, a wonderful South Florida setting, and a cast of more-or-less lethal bimbos...I loved this book.”—Charlaine Harris
“Brave Viets preps by actually working the jobs she describes in loving and hilarious detail, giving her offbeat series a healthy balance between the banal and the bizarre.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Laugh-out-loud comedy with enough twists and turns to make it to the top of the mystery bestseller charts.” —Florida Today
“Fans of Janet Evanovich and Parnell Hall will appreciate Viets’s humor.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Wit, murder, and sunshine . . . it must be Florida. I love this new series.”—Nancy Pickard
“A heroine with a sense of humor and a gift for snappy dialogue.”—Jane Heller  (Summary via Amazon)


I just love the Dead-End Job Mystery series by Elaine Viets and am very happy that JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. are giving them new life.  This series was written years ago but I have only recently been introduced to it.  I read and reviewed the first book in this series, Shop Till You Drop, and knew that I wanted to read every single book in this series.

I fell in love with the main character, Helen Hawthorne.  Helen is on the run from her past.  A past where she was married, had a great job, and she thought a solid marriage.  All of that changed one day when she returned home early from work and caught her low-life husband cheating !!!  When they went to court for divorce and the judge awarded her ex a percentage of her future earnings, she vowed that he would never receive another penny from her.  So she packed up and moved to Florida where she has her own apartment, a few people she can call friends, and a cat.  The only bad thing is that in order to keep her vow to not givr her ex another cent, she has to find employers who are willing to pay her cash. 

In Murder Between the Covers, Helen is working at a bookstore called Page Turners, after its founder the original Page Turner.  She is working for the grandson who is a very sleazy, cheap and creepy drunk.  Page Turner III has a hobby of bedding women in his office and taping the sessions.  When he is found murdered, the list of suspects is quite long, unfortunately the police only look at one person.  That person is Helen's friend, Peggy, and the main reason she is the only suspect is because he is found dead in her bed .......

Helen knows that there is no way that Peggy would have killed Page and will stop at nothing to prove that.  With the help of her landlady, Margery, they lead their own investigation.  

There is so much to fall in love with in this series !!!!  As soon as I finished reading the first book I was looking forward to this next one. And now that I am done with Murder Betweent the Covers, I cannot wait to pick up the next book to see where Helen is going to work next and what craziness will follow her....  

Review by Missi S.