Dying, Dying, Dying for a Date

Dying for a Date [by] Cindy Sample

Spring, Texas; L & L Dreamspell, 2010

978-1-60318-248-5; $16.95

Recently-divorced Laurel McKay realizes she needs to get back into the swing of things, so she reluctantly joins THE LOVE CLUB, a matchmaking agency advertised as the safe alternative to on-line dating. After Bachelor Number One decides, after a lovely dinner that she enjoyed, that he wants her for dessert, Laurel clocks him with her cell phone. The next day she finds out her drop-dead gorgeous date has literally dropped dead. Laurel has blood all over her dress, after she gave him a bloody nose, and her fingerprints are all over his car.  And the investigating detective turns out to be the hunky father of her son’s soccer rival.  He has to decide if the sassy soccer mom is a killer, which makes Laurel’s life just a wee bit uncomfortable, especially with all of the evidence against her.

Laurel soldiers on, going on a second Love Club date.  When Bachelor Number Two disappears during dinner, coming up dead while Laurel is in the restroom with no alibi, Detective Hunter’s crack that he should follow her on the next date to make sure the homicide rate doesn’t rise falls flatter than the proverbial pancake.

Then her boss at Hangtown Bank threatens to fire her when he learns the latest victim was an important client. Fortunately he needs her expertise to investigate some questionable loans. Laurel enlists help from a couple of coworkers at the bank, plus her mother, a high-producing realtor, who insists her daughter is innocent because she is too disorganized to plan a murder. This unlikely collection of investigators set out to save Laurel’s reputation, job, and life.

Sample’s characters are easily relatable.  You could see yourself hanging out with them.  Her friends from the bank are wonderful – everyone should have such friends!  They are quirky and, although murder isn’t funny, Sample’s light touch brings just the right amount of humor to this, her first novel. 

The only problem I see in this book is that it suffers from an economy of players.  When the obvious possible villains are bumped off, there just aren’t enough left to hide the bad guy very well, but the chase they go through to pin him down is definitely worth the price of admission – it’s a rollickingly good scene!  Laurel is a great gal, and you can tell that she got that from her mother!

The action takes place in the small bedroom community of El Dorado Hills, a suburb in the foothills above Sacramento, which is fun for those of us who live in the area and can relate to the streets and neighborhoods the author calls to mind in the story.  The bank Laurel works in is on the downtown main street of Placerville (called Hangtown in Gold Rush days), and you can really see the “hanged man” from the windows.

This is really a very good first book, and I look forward to more from Cindy Sample. 

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I purchased this book from the author, who is a friend, in order to review it.

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