High Heels are Murder (Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper, Book 2)

Josie Marcus, professional shopper, gets in the middle of another murder. She goes into a high end shoe store and discovers the wonderful salesperson really, I mean really likes shoes. The busybody neighbor wants Josie to help her daughter, a longtime rival of Josie's because police suspect her in the murder of "the creepy salesman." Excellently written. This book moves along quickly through the darker side of life in St. Louis. I highly reccommend this book. If you like Elaine Viets, you will love this book.

This writers books are my idea of a great afternoon or evening alone with a funny/wonderful paperback to read. It keeps you very interested from start to finish and makes you wish you had another to look forward to immediately instead of having to wait until the "great author" gets another written and published. This is one of my favorite paperback authors who I sincerely hope will break out into Hardback and Audiobooks one day soon. In the meantime...keep them coming!!!

The Mystery Shopper series gets better with each installment. This time Josie, the amateur sleuth is trailing the murderer of a shoe salesman with a foot fetish. For added fun, Josie discovers that her snobby childhood rival is involved in a most embarrasing way. Don't we love to take down the Miss Perfects in our lives! Elaine Viets, a longtime St. Louis columnist, writes with authentic local flavor and humor. This is not heavy literature-- it's just a funny and entertaining page turner.

Mystery shopper Josie Marcus returns for yet another entertaining and intriguing mystery installment, "High Heels Are Murder," which, initially, starts off innocently enough with Josie being hired to discover if there was something really nasty about Soft Shoe's top salesman, Mel Poulaine, handling of the female customers' feet and shoes. The last thing Josie expected was that her report would have repercussions that would impact on her personally. For as long as she can remember, Josie's detestable nosy neighbour, Mrs. Mueller, has looked down her nose at her. And for as long as she can remember, Mrs. Mueller's only daughter, Cheryl (who just happens to be the same as age as Josie) has been held up as a standard of perfection to which Josie could never aspire. So that when Mel Poulaine, the shoe salesman that Josie had exposed as a foot fetishist, and who was fired from his job because of his inappropriate behaviour towards customers, is found murdered in his home, the last thing Josie expected was for Mrs. Mueller to come knocking on her door, begging for her help. Bizarrely enough, Cheryl, Mrs. Mueller's perfect daughter, is the prime suspect in Mel's murder -- and not only that, but the police are also sure that Cheryl and Mel were having a sexual relationship. Mrs. Mueller is sure that this is not the case and that Cheryl is a victim of circumstance, ands she wants Josie to help prove Cheryl's innocence. Agreeing to help only if Mrs. Mueller agrees to get her mother the chair of two committees her mother has had an eye on for decades, Josie sets off, with her best friend, Alyce, in tow, to discover who hated Mel enough to kill him, and finds herself uncovering all kinds of dark secrets, addictions and perversions that the rich and powerful would kill to protect... "High Heels Are Murder" was a very entertaining and engaging read. The mystery plot is well thought out, even if the suspense is not always there -- this may have something to do with the pacing which while swift enough, was a tad uneven. However, Elaine Viets did keep me guessing till the end as to who-did-it and why, and I didn't feel cheated with the way she tied things up at all. All in all, this was a fun read. I found myself mentally cheering for Josie throughout the novel, and would count "High Heels Are Murder" as another mystery novel well worth the money spent.

Josie Marcus is a single mom who lives with her own mother for a reduced rent and has a job she loves even if it doesn't pay well. She is a mystery shopper, one of those anonymous customers who visit a store to learn why an employer gets too many complaints. An employer calls the firm Josie works for and her boss assigns her to investigate Mel, a salesman at Soft Shoe. When she follows him to the back room and sees what he is about to do sexually to her shoe she files a bad report and he is fired. A couple of days later Mel is found murdered at his palatial estate. Mrs. Mueller, Josie's nosy neighbor tells her that her daughter Cheryl has been questioned by the police because evidence shows she was there. Her neighbor hires Josie to prove her daughter is innocent. Josie finds Cheryl is a gambling addict, and is part of a slave fetish ring by Mel to make money for women who need extra money. When Mel's housekeeper is killed and Cheryl is connected to Mel's murder Josie finds her life in danger from a killer who is protecting someone else and doesn't want Josie finding out and revealing that secret. Elaine Viets has written one of the funniest amateur sleuth mysteries to come along in ages. Her protagonist is a thoroughly likeable person, a great mother, daughter and friend who does the right things for the right reasons, even when they make her uncomfortable. There is a lot of action in HIGH HEELS ARE MURDER but the strength and the freshness of the tale lies in the characters who are realistic and believable. Harriet Klausner