Tote Bags and Toe Tags [by] Dorothy Howell
[New York
978-0-7582-5332-3; $23.00
Haley Randolph hits a milestone in her young life. Hoping to get out of her dead-end job at Holt’s Department Store, she enrolled in the University of Mixology Bartending School and has just graduated. Unfortunately, her official boyfriend Ty believes that she has a degree in business from the University of Michigan
She gets to the office early, meets her new boss, Violet, and sits in on an orientation class with the other new hires. All of the new people learn that background checks will be done on them. Haley realizes that, if a background check is done, she’ll lose her job because of the mistake over “UM.” She gets cold feet, but there’s nothing she can do.
The next day, she also arrives early, only to find Violet lying in a bloody heap behind her own superior’s desk. The next person to come along starts screaming that Haley is the culprit. Seeing an opportunity to show her skills under pressure, Haley bars everyone from the crime scene, and calls both building security and the police. This makes her even more suspect. She gets interviewed by the same police team that has followed her though the previous 4 books of the series – one who is convinced she is guilty, and the other who doesn’t believe it for a minute, but can’t go against his partner.
Since the dead woman was to be doing the background checks, these have been postponed, and Haley is moved into the office next door to where she found Violet. She is put in charge of all of the company’s celebrations: birthday club, retirement parties, and, of course, Violet’s memorial. Although she has no idea what the company does, nor where anything is, she starts to work, which means – to her – texting her friends, updating her Facebook page, and daydreaming about the clothes that she will need to buy to work there, and especially the Temptress handbag that she covets.
She gets a little direction from some of the secretaries and a little help, such as a Dempsey Rowland corporate charge card, which she uses to purchase a cake and balloons for the first birthday party, as well as Mocha Frappuccinos at Starbuck’s for herself.
Meanwhile, there are things going on in the rest of her life. Because she is still unsure whether she’ll be able to keep the job, she is still working shifts as a clerk at Holt’s. A woman she’d once helped get over her fears after bring the victim of a crime there comes back to work and, following Haley’s advice, gets a backbone, and demands that Haley take the makeup tests on all the training she has managed to avoid all the time she’s worked there.
Her relationship with Holt’s CEO, Ty Holt, takes a turn for the weird. She gets a phone call from Palmdale – Ty has been in an accident – he’s OK, but would she come and get him? (And WHY has Ty gone to Palmdale?) He tells her that he’s decided to become the boyfriend she deserves. He moves into her apartment so that he will be more available. [He has always called at the last minute to cancel dates, because work has interfered, or he spends all his time on his cell phone, instead of with her.]
Now he has lots of time to shop for presents, like the big grill and the big flatscreen TV he’s ordered, and then leaves in pieces all over her living room, pushing her interior decorating touches into the background. And he takes over her diet, providing her with healthy choices, without any knowledge of what she needs or requires. He also makes her life interesting at her new job by sending enormous flower arrangements and a crooner. But he never gives her the look that "her" detective gives his girlfriend.
And her mother, a former beauty pageant star, calls her to tell her that her maid has been kidnapped. Not to mention, the supportive cop from the L.A.P.D. Homicide Unit has suggested that she sleuth about the place and find out who might actually have killed Violet. So when Haley isn’t designing parties for her job, she is following her co-new-hires, consulting with a man who may have connections with the Russian mob, interviewing retirees, and detecting with her private detective friend. No wonder she hasn’t time to find the Temptress handbag!
But she does realize that she hasn’t communicated well with Ty, who is not being the boyfriend she deserves, and that her mother’s mis-communication with her maid has resulted in total misunderstanding. She uncovers who killed Violet and lots of other problems with the company, thus ending her job there, but with 8 new suits and enough money to buy the Temptress, if she can get her hands on one! A funny and clever romp, as Chick Lit meets Mystery. Highly recommended. ~ lss-r
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