She Smiled Sweetly: A Poppy Rice Mystery

by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Book Overview

In Poppy Rice's second venture, the smart, outspoken FBI agent's vacation is rudely interrupted by a sinister murder FBI agent Poppy Rice is, rather unwillingly, taking time off to recuperate from... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805072241
• ISBN13: 9780805072242
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Murder by Sound, Again

The book was a fun read, and I guessed the means long before it was revealed, because it was in fact the "means" used in the Dorothy Sayers classic, The Nine Tailors. In the Sayers novel, the "murder by sound" was unintentional, but appears to have caused the same cadavaric spasms. I kept waiting for Poppy to bring up Sayers' use of that method.

And I smiled along with her (when I wasn't being shocked)

Back from a failed vacation, Poppy Rice is summoned by an Irish-Catholic fire marshall to look into a thirty-year-old death by drowning in Ireland. Poppy becomes entirely engrossed in the case when she recognizes the parallels between the Irish case and the case of an Irish-American girl who drowned in Boston just a year and a half before. Teamed up with Rocky Patel, a Boston homicide cop, for the American case, Poppy digs into the troubled history of the Boston girl, and unearths tragedies neither her family nor the elite community in which they exist want exposed. Strangely enough, a DNA match links the two girls, despite the time span and the distance between their deaths. Poppy uncovers a tale of child molestation, prostitution, and a Catholic sense of shame and faith.Poppy is back in full-force, and the constant on-edge feeling the reading gives is more in-tune with the promise of the first book in the series, Love Her Madly. Poppy is a character who, though perhaps a little distant, is very open about her life and with her opinions. The book is so well-written that the reader, though puzzled about some of the things Poppy says along the way, comes to understand exactly what she meant. Tense, fast-paced, and witty, this is a series worth the time.

Good ingredients but needs work

I got this book because I had just been down in the RI/CT area and the premise sounded interesting. In fact, the plot was interesting, the concepts were good and the method of murder something I have never heard of in real life or in books so that was intriguing. The writing style is not that great, conversations are sometimes hard to follow and some scenes seem repetitive and the pace could have been picked up. Also the heroine is imbued with too much goodness : the "native Block Islanders" are described as keeping to themselves yet they take to her immediately? And can she really cure an alcoholic by meeting him?? All in all the author has great ideas and shows great promise but needs a better editor.

Compelling with well developed characters

Block Island is the perfect place for FBI agent Poppy Rice to recuperate--along with her lover, ATF agent Joe Barnow. Admittedly, the law on Block Island is comprised of one aging Constable and an alcoholic state trooper, but that's all right. There was never any crime on Block Island. At least there wasn't until Poppy almost runs over the body of an overweight teenage girl twisted and tortured in death. A con man has opened a camp for overweight girls on Block Island and someone is targetting the girls. Joe goes into retreat, unwilling to accept the possibility that his island harbors a serpent in its heart, so it's up to Poppy, along with alcoholic Fitzy, to get to the bottom of the case. Bumbling officials in Rhode Island and in the Center for Disease Control end up making things more difficult for Poppy. Author Mary-Ann Tirone Smith writes a compelling page turner. Her descriptions of the people of this north-eastern island are convincing and three-dimensional. Poppy is sympathetic and smart, without being superwoman. I especially enjoyed the character of Fitzy--a hugely damaged individual who battles himself and his own fears.

wonderful law enforcement investigation

DC based FBI Agent Poppy Rice and her boyfriend ATF Field Advisor Joe Barnow go on a "required" vacation on Block Island, Rhode Island after her harrowing war in Texas (see LOVE HER MADLY). While riding a bike, Poppy finds the corpse of a teen.Poppy performs her civil duty by calling the police. A local physician concludes that the female victim died from using bad drugs, but an autopsy proves Dana was clean plus there were external injuries on the body. Three days later, a second teen is found dead. The two share in common attendance at Camp Guinevere, a camp for the obese. Police Officer Francis X. Fitzgerald investigates the homicides, but Poppy finds him and the "medical examiner lacking as the former spends most of his time drinking and the latter under the influence of a prescription drug. Thus Poppy does what she does best, conducting her own inquiries as to whom killed the two overweight farm campers even as the island is quarantined due to a reported plague epidemic.In her second engagement Poppy Rice remains a wonderful law enforcement investigator who cannot resist involvement even when it could cost her life. The "dual" investigations (local vs. Poppy) are fun to compare as one seems indifferently amateurish while the other passionately professionalism. Joe enables the reader to see the feminine side Of Poppy while the islanders add quirky amusing peculiarities to an enjoyable tale that means forty-eight states and several territories to go.Harriet Klausner