Taking the Wrap: A Mandy Dyer Mystery

by Dolores Johnson

Book Overview

Are you ready to create a new Turning Point in your life? Have you ever looked back over time and noticed that there were certain turning points that literally changed the direction of your life? For... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312321155
• ISBN13: 9780312321154
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Ms. Johnson has done it again

The Mandy Dyer series just gets better and better. Her character is funny, original and well written. Johnson is a solid writer with a great sense of humor. Keep writing! Haven't read a mystery I enjoyed more than this one in a while. It was light but not trite! Humorous without being silly, and well plotted. Congratulations on another fine mystery.

Taking the Wrap

Mandy is a delight and so are the characters around her. She is always getting herself in 'hot' water when she ends up trying to solve a murder. You can't help but like her as she is so human and likeable. It is a fun romp of a murder mystery. Good for a beach, plane ride or fun read.

The best ever!

This definitly has to be one of Dolores Johnson's best efforts in the Mandy Dyer Mystery series. I'm not going to give away too much, but now with that horribly stale relationship with Stan off to the side, there's room for a bit more! I'm too excited for her next story to see where it goes, hopefully it won't be too long for the next episode.

Highly enjoyable and funny mystery

It starts out as a straightforward dry cleaning problem. Mandy Dyer's cousin had a coat switched at a restaurant and she wants to get her own coat back. But when cousin Laura is involved in a hit-and-run as she leaves the dry cleaners, Mandy wonders if it could truly be coincidence. Coincidence is stretched past breaking when Mandy walks into an in-progress burglary at her cousin's apartment. With her matchmaking mother riding to the rescue, a hopelessly nerdy reporter falling for Laura, and a hunky detective causing problems for Mandy's heart, the problems look to be getting worse in a hurry. Photographer Laura's restaurant photos seem a likely starting point. But who would have guessed that a small restaurant could cause so many problems--a man dining with a woman who isn't his wife, another couple confronted with news of the woman's unexpected pregnancy, a woman stood-up by her business partners, and a strange ghost-like double-exposure which could be just about anyone. Mandy presses on in her investigation--although occasionally her motives are more to get away from her mother than to solve the crime. Author Dolores Johnson delivers a spunky heroine, amusing characters and dialogue, a very different background for her sleuth (I haven't seen any other dry-cleaner/detectives) and a well-written story. I enjoyed TAKING THE WRAP a lot.

upbeat, often funny amateur sleuth

While Laura was at the Rendezview Restaurant someone took her coat while she was taking photographs so she borrowed the last coat that was on the rack. In Laura's coat was a role of film she would like to get back and in the stranger's coat is a stamped envelope, a bottle of aspirin and a box of matches. Laura wants her friend Mandy, owner and proprietor of Dyer's Cleaning, to call other cleaners in the area to see if they have her coat. She figures they might be able to identify the other coat owner by tracing the laundry logs. When Laura leaves the cleaning store, a car deliberately hits her, breaking her le:, Mandy rushes her to the hospital. When Laura is released, Mandy goes over to her apartment with some Chinese food to cheer her up only someone in the apartment hits her from behind. Mandy thinks that her unknown assailant is looking for the photos or the coat and starts another one of her investigations that almost gets her killed. TAKING THE WRAP is an upbeat, often funny amateur sleuth mystery due to the heroine's mother's visit to take care of Laura and help Mandy in her investigation. All that does is make a bad situation worse when she tells people things they don't need to know. In between her botched matchmaking efforts, Mandy does the impossible and finds the coat that belonged to Laura's friend who no longer needs it because someone killed her. Two other people who were at the Rendezview also turn up murdered, leaving Mandy to connect the dots and find the perpetrator before Laura joins the morgue. Harriet Klausner