Two Words, One Answer.
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 Enameled Ch-2304 : Sterling Silver Enamel 2 Sided Smily Face Charm (one Side Winking) $25.08 - Adorable Bright Yellow Enameled Smiley Face Charm - Charm Is Hollow With An Open Side 'V' Design Giving It A Drum Like Appearance - Silver Charm Is Double Sided And Lays Flat - Split Ring Attachment - 15mm Diameter; 4mm Thick  Young Dro Poster YoungDro Smily Mouth $9.99 This poster is 18 inches by 24 inches approximately. It is in mint condition  The Chef Who Died Sauteing $28.95 Ariel Quigley is a Desert Storm vet, a writing teacher, and a psychic who lives in Virginia. Her life gets even more interesting when she befriends Bernice Wise, one of her adult students who also happens to be a psychotherapist. Ariel moves into Bernice's spare apartment and joins her new friend on Friday-night outings to the Riviera Cafe in Old Town Alexandria. But it doesn't take long for their favorite restaurant to head into trouble: the chef is found dead on the kitchen floor one morning. One of the owners already had some vandalism occur at his apartment; then another owner is injured in a car accident that was caused by severed brake lines. Can Ariel use her psychic powers and Tarot readings to figure out who's behind these calamities? And can she do the same for Bernice, who has at least one ghost living on her property? How is Hurricane Isabel going to affect everyone and the restaurant? Can Ariel also recuperate from the death of her fiance the year before, and begin dating again? This first Ariel Quigley mystery provides some good reading entertainment and an interesting mystery to unravel. Ariel's psychic abilities and experiences with ghost communication are quirky twists that add flavor to the premise and dimension to her character. Not bad for a first installment. However: I think the authors try to cover too many bases and include too much information here. Too many subplots lead us away from the main mystery, that of chef Daniel Lafayette's death. (I found Bernice's twins, their banter and their activities to be a distraction. And the framework setup of the fiance's death could have easily been eliminated as well.) Dialogue drives the text, which can be a wonderfully personal technique when done well; but as each character arrives on the scene, he/she seems moved to provide Ariel (and us) with all the background details of his/her past. This violates the old "Show, don't tell" rule of writing, and it's not the way people usually talk in real life, outside of AA meetings. Less would have been more in this book. Still, the mystery is a compelling one that's worth reading. I have no doubt that the series will get stronger as it progresses. |
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