Josie Tucker is, perhaps, the most unlikely amateur detective you're ever going to meet.
She's a journalist by profession.
But she's not a reporter who covers the mean streets and rubs elbows with cops at crime scenes.
No, the sometimes cranky, generally acerbic Ms. Tucker is a food writer.
With stomach problems.
Roped into being a bridesmaid at the wedding of a woman she barely knows, she 's also going broke trying to pay for the dress and the shoes and... well, you get the picture: Josie Tucker is not a happy camper. Her main goal at the beginning of EM Kaplan's 'The Bride Wore Dead' is a simple one: She simply wants to survive the summertime wedding and reception without dying of heat stroke.
She does manage to survive it, but only barely, and thinks that she can finally put a truly dreadful day behind her.
Turns out, however, that she can't.
Why not?
Because the bride turns up dead on her honeymoon and, for reasons that are not immediately clear to her, she's asked to look into what has been ruled an accidental death. Despite the fact she has virtually no skills as an investigator she agrees to do that because, well because it means spending some time at a very fancy desert resort with some cash thrown in to sweeten the deal.
And, besides, she's curious.
In the meantime, she's trying to balance her love life - what there is of it - and she's trying really hard not to fall victim to the same people who killed the blushing (and somewhat bruised) bride.
That's all I'm going to tell you about the plot because to write anything else about it might just allow you to figure out the ending without reading the book and that would be a shame because Kaplan is a very fine writer with a nice light touch when the occasion calls for it. She has a nice narrative sense and, as a result, 'The Bride Wore Dead' moves right along with none of those little bumps in the road that slow a reader down.
(I particularly enjoyed her descriptions of the food that Josie would love to eat more of but can't because there really is something wrong with her stomach... which is a problem for someone who earns her daily bread writing about, well, bread and a lot of other things you'd find on the table.)
The action is fast paced and Ms. Tucker finds herself the object of some unwanted attention by suspects in the case but Kaplan doesn't make the mistake of trying to turn Josie into some kind of Amazon warrior. Josie is a petite heroine who is out of her depth as an investigator and when she gets in trouble she doesn't lay anyone out with a roundhouse kick and a karate chop. Instead, she manages to get out of that trouble in a believable way and that adds credibility to the narrative.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Bride Wore Dead' and highly recommend it.
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Top reviews from other countries
Sharon E. Leighton
A good traditional mystery with good non-traditional characters
Reviewed in Canada on November 26, 2015
nanamama777
selten so gelangweilt, selten so eine unsympathische Hauptfigur...
Reviewed in Germany on November 25, 2015Paul Ian Chaplin
Fallen in Love with Josie Tucker
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2015
Gus
The prickly Josie Tucker food writer, becomes super sleuth.
Reviewed in Australia on August 20, 2015
