Dead Ex: Dead Ex: A Mystery

DEAD EX by Harley Jane Kozak Doubleday 2007 In DEAD EX, Harley Jane Kozak has managed to write a complex, funny, poignant and hardboiled story all in one. Some might protest at the use of the word "hardboiled" but Kozak includes several key elements of that genre - the journey through a city's high and low life and the first person narrator whose sad history is highlighted with glints of hope. In fact, I often found myself thinking as I read this intelligent book that this is what Raymond Chandler would sound like if he had been a woman. Sure, women can write Chandler-style narratives and do them very well, thank you very much. But those stories are always rooted firmly in a man's world for the most part, even when the protagonist is a woman. Kozak writes unabashedly from the point of view of a woman, scraped and bruised a bit by life's blows, but whose face is always turned toward the sun. The writing is graceful, ironic and smart--don't blink or you'll miss a spot-on metaphor or heart-piercing observation. In this third book in a series, greeting card designer and muralist Wollie Shelley learns that an old friend, soap opera producer David Zetrakis, has died - not of the cancer that would have felled him in short order but by a gunshot to the head. Was it murder or assisted suicide? And why is Wollie's best friend Joey Rafferty (David's ex-lover) looking and acting so danged guilty? Wollie's faith in her friend's innocence sends her on a search for the real murderer as well as the reason for Joey's obfuscations. Along the way, Wollie deals with suspicions over her lover Simon's mysterious shenanigans (is he really undercover for the FBI or just...under covers with another woman?), employment woes (as she stumbles through a freelance job as "dating correspondent" for the weekly gossip show SoapDirt), artistic endeavors (as she prepares to paint a mural of epic proportions for a venerable soap star) and family challenges (as she prepares to move her mentally-ill brother to a halfway house with the help of her Uncle Theo who has a penchant for collecting...Greeks. As in illegal alien Greeks). This is where Kozak's skill reaches for and often attains perfection. With casual grace, she seeds her story with an enormous cast of colorful characters, odd-seeming incidents and even apt references to Greek mythology and The Iliad. At first, it all appears random and unrelated--until she ties up every loose end in a fantastic bow. Chekov supposedly proposed this simple rule of dramatic composition--if there's a gun in Act One, it must go off by Act Four. Kozak has a couple dozen guns strewn around in Act One and fires them all off magnificently by Act Four, raising this clever, funny, quixotic and sweet novel several notches above the now-standard mystery novel packed with oddball characters and quirky-narrator. An outstanding book--highly recommended.

Harley Jane Kozak's character Wollie Shelley is one of the most original characters out there in the "chick lit" mystery genre. Dead Ex made me laugh out loud and proved to be a real page turner. The dialogue is sharp and witty and the mystery is tight. Kozak's cast of zany characters make for pleasurable reading. I've been a big fan since Dating Dead Men. If you enjoy the Stephanie Plum novels, this book is certainly as good (if not better) than anything that has recently been produced by Evanovich. Read it!!

When a Hollywood soap opera producer is murdered, the suspects are numerous. Wollie Shelly's best friend, Joey, is painted by the media as the most likely killer. Several personal crises in Joey's life add to that image, not to mention a painting worth $1 million that she inherited from the dead man. Wollie's new job as a dating consultant on a program called SoapDirt makes it easy for her to snoop around the set. Her assignment is to date soap stars and dish about them on television, complicating her blossoming romance with FBI agent Simon Alexander. Though third in this series, this book stands well on its own. There are mentions of events and people from previous books but they are not too revealing and provide just enough information to keep up. My advice is to start with the first one and enjoy all of them. Each one is better than the last. I love Kozak's take on Hollywood. As an actor in movies and on soaps, she has an insider's view of that lifestyle. Her characters and dialog ring true. I also find her laugh-out-loud funny. Be careful where you read her books. People are bound to interrupt you to find out what you are laughing about. Armchair Interviews says: A book that will tickle your funny bone and your mystery-loving gene.

Greeting card designer and serial dater Wollie Shelley returns in Harley Jane Kozak's delightful third novel, DEAD EX. When Wollie's ex-boyfriend, a terminally-ill soap opera producer, is murdered, her best friend (who also dated him) is the prime suspect. Wollie must jump headfirst into the shark-infested waters of Hollywood to find out what really happened and clear her friend's name. DEAD EX is a charming book with a well-done mystery and plenty of fun characters.

I can't say enough good things about this book. Where so many mysteries pander to the mundane or brutal, Kozak's latest excels in its intelligence, wit and charm. It's not just the mystery that's compelling - it's the characters like unique Fredreeq, drunken Joey and Wollie, the protagonist who thinks in greeting card captions, who set this book apart. Plus, there is an underlying theme of Greek classical literature. Yes, it's also peeks into the world of soap operas and Hollywood and that would be enough. But this has Kozak's sparkling dialogue and hysterical asides. It's funny. It's sexy. It's smart. There are so many awful mysteries written these days. This is not one of them. That's why Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review. Enjoy!