Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery

by Elaine Viets

Book Overview

Agatha and Anthony Award-winning author. Living life on the lam and working wherever she can find a paycheck, Helen Hawthorne has a knack for keeping a low profile. Currently, she's mixing pay cuts... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451226860
• ISBN13: 9780451226860
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: Berkley
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Killer Cuts

A Dead End Job Mystery Paperback Release May 4, 2010 In this eighth edition of the Dead End Mysteries Helen Hawthorne is working at Miguel's Angel's Hair Salon, where celebrities and the rich and famous of Fort Lauderdale come for their very pricey makeovers. Helen works as a gofer for the manager, sweeps up hair and keeps the place tidy. Helen also accompanies Miguel Angel as his assistant to help him prepare some of his most famous clients for their wedding day, gossip blogger and cable TV show host Kingman "King" Oden and his latest fiancee are expecting a baby, tying the knot and hoping to live happily ever after. At least that is the plan until the groom is found floating in the pool during the reception. Things get really "hairy" when Miguel Angel becomes the prime suspect. Never fear, Helen is on the case, to find the real murderer to save Miguel's shoppe, while at the same time trying to plan her own wedding. She must be on to something because she starts to receive threatening notes. How close is she is catching the murderer? And who is really living in the cursed apartment 2C this time? I have really enjoyed this entire series and this edition doesn't disappoint. There is action right up to the final page, all the quirky characters are back, humorous dialogue, and just the right amount of suspense for this popular cozy series. The next edition of this series Half-Price Homicide: A Dead-End Job Mystery also comes out in hardcover on May 4th. It has Helen working at a high-end designer consignment shop. I haven't read this one yet but it looks as good as the others. Two more books to add to your Summer Reading Lists. To find out more about Elaine Viets, her books and even a sneak preview of Half-Price Homicide, check out her website at [...]. She is also the author of Mystery Shopper Series, featuring Josie Marcus. Killer Cuts: A Dead-End Job Mystery

Killer Cuts

In the latest entry of her Dead-End Job Mystery Series [the other being the popular Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Series], Helen Hawthorne, 41 years old, has been working as a gofer at a chic, high end [read 'obscenely expensive'] beauty salon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Miguel Angel, Cuban-born hairstylist and makeup artist to the stars and celebrities, is himself an international celebrity. As the book opens, Miguel Angel and staff are preparing one of their clients for her wedding to a wealthy gossip blogger and cable TV show host Kingman "King" Oden, 61 years old and boorish almost beyond belief. Of course when, shortly before the vows are taken, with Helen and Miguel Angel in attendance, the latter says "What can go wrong? We're supposed to have beautiful weather, and you're a beautiful bride," the reader just knows that something terrible will happen: Within an hour of the ceremony, the groom is found dead in the pool on the grounds of his palatial property. With an ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, and ex-business partner, among many others, in attendance, there is no shortage of suspects. [The groom had described himself as having "six million readers - - and probably six million enemies."] Chief among them is Helen's boss, a Cuban-born, gay and occasionally cross-dressing man who was caught on videotape threatening to kill King shortly before the wedding. Another suspect is the new bride, 38 and six months pregnant and now wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. Helen has her own problems beyond wanting to protect her boss and thereby her cushy new job. She is due to marry Phil, her PI boyfriend, in less than two weeks. She is also using a false name and is on the run from the law in St. Louis after a disastrous marriage and an even worse divorce. Despite all that, she has to help Miguel Angel, and determines that the only way to do that is to find the real killer, and allow her to get back to her 'normal life.' I thought the author was reaching a bit with a brief TSTL moment near the end of the book, but otherwise I found this a delightfully breezy, well-crafted book, and a perfect beach read.

A thriller perfect for mystery patrons

Elaine Viets' KILLER CUTS: A DEAD-END JOB MYSTERY tells of Helen's latest gig: working in Miguel Angel's hair salon. When one of its biggest clients is murdered at his own wedding, the salon - and Helen - become involved as Helen determines that locating the murderer will help business - and her friend. A thriller perfect for mystery patrons.

Biting Wit and Killer Mystery

For someone who's spent the last few years hiding from the law, Helen Hawthorne has spent a lot of time involved in police investigations. Every since she took a crow bar to her philandering ex-husband's SUV and received a court order forcing her to pay alimony, Helen has been working Dead-End jobs for money under the table and off his radar. Her latest occupation has Helen earning tips at the high-end hair salon of Miguel Angel, where women are willing to fork over money in the triple digits in an effort to retain the hair of their youth and stave off the years. When Miguel Angel is hired to style the latest bride of odious celebrity gossip blogger Kingman "King" Ogden a confrontation between the two men has Miguel Angel as the number one suspect when the new groom is found drowned in the pool following the ceremony. Confounding the investigation is video footage of King arguing with a woman in a blue dress - which just happens to be the same dress worn by virtually every jealous woman and bridesmaid at the ceremony and the disguise worn by Miguel Angel when he escaped from the wedding chaos. In order for Helen to save the one decent job she's had in recent years she must clear Miguel Angel's name and get the celebrities back into the salon. In the 8th Dead-End Job mystery Viets continues to skewer the elitist, superficial, segment of society who patronize the high-end stores and salons in an unattainable quest for eternal youth and beauty. At times her wit borders on being cruel to the botoxed, skeletal, desperate women, but the humor shines through when Viets highlights Helen's own personal turmoil. Helen is in the midst of planning her own wedding to her perfect FBI agent, but she's determined to have her ceremony be as much of a contrast to the over-the-top expensive King extravaganza as possible. With the aid of her fiancé Phil her landlady Margery Flax, Helen tracks down prostitutes, strip joints, and for fun, a drag bachelorette party. This is another extremely entertaining mystery by Viets that shines a light on the shallow, fragile, and deadly world of the Fort Lauderdale "elite."

exciting whodunit

When a judge awarded her cheating husband half of her considerable earnings, she refused to pay it (see SHOP TILL YOU DROP). Defying the court order, she left the state, changed her name to Helen Hawthorne, and ended up in Fort Lauderdale at the Coronado Tropic Apartments where she becomes friends with the landlady Margery Flax. She accepts dead-end jobs with her latest at Miguel Angel's salon where she receives tips and minimum wage for running errands, making drinks, and sweeping floors. Miguel and Helen go to the house of Honey's fiancé to fix her hair and make-up so she can marry a privileged old billionaire Kingman Oden who writes the Stardust Gossip blog that tell all about celebrities. Honey is pregnant and refuses to marry Kingman if he insists on a pre-nuptial. One hour after they exchange vows, the "King" is dead, a homicide victim. Miguel is the prime suspect because he was seen arguing with the victim and issued a loud death threat at the King. Helen refuses to accept that Miguel killed Oden; so she seeks evidence to clear him while trying to get all the details finished for her wedding to Phil. However, increasingly everything so far hangs Miguel. The latest Dead-End Job mystery (see CLUBBED TO DEATH) is an exciting whodunit made much more fascinating by the fact that the victim is an unsympathetic character who had enough enemies to fill the Miami Orange Bowl (pre- demolition that is). The King royally pissed off his ex-wife, his former mistress, his ex business partner and much of the Southern Florida population. The support cast adds a key degree of plausibility to this fine amateur sleuth, but it is Helen with Phil's help who owns the plot as she does her best to exonerate her boss; her efforts lead her into interesting scenarios. Harriet Klausner