Publishers Weekly
It's hard to believe that the author of the Alex Bernier books (Ecstasy, etc., under her maiden name of Beth Saulnier) could produce this awkward mystery. Like a gawky teenager, there's some appeal here, but the self-consciousness and gaffes make it a little painful to witness. Isabelle Leonard has moved to New York City to be with her future husband only to be left at the altar. Broke and friendless, she lands a job at Becky Belden Multimedia, the eponymous Becky being a cross between Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. Isabelle quickly becomes aware that employees are turning up dead left and right, a fact that apparently no one else has noted. Her instant best friend, a stereotypical gay co-worker, Trevor Hopkins, offers support but no help and, inevitably, meets an unfortunate fate, as does Isabelle's immediate boss. Meanwhile, handsome Max Collins, a Becky Belden executive, becomes a love interest tainted with a predictable measure of mystery and suspicion. Between Isabelle's juvenile handling of men in bars and her fiction writing, she picks up remarkably few clues, but eventually finds herself in an all-too-predictable showdown. Isabelle seems like a sweet kid, but she's a little tedious, and she's found herself in a story plagued with stiff and obvious plotting. Agent, Jimmy Vines. (Mar. 21) Forecast: A four-city author tour, along with advance praise by Judith Kelman, should ensure a good start. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
When her society groom runs away with her best friend on what was supposed to be their honeymoon trip to Fiji, Isabelle Leonard attends her fancy wedding reception anyway and dances on the table. Her spunk is so impressive that the papers run her picture with a caption, "Give Em Hell Isabelle." Now stuck with an unfurnished uptown apartment she can't afford, Isabelle waits tables part time and subsists on peanut butter sandwiches. Her luck appears to change when she's hired as an underling for Becky Belden, a sort of Martha Stewart on happy pills. As icing on the cake, one of the executives shows some serious romantic interest in her. Something, however, is not right in the "creepy-chipper" world of Becky Belden Multimedia, beginning with a string of dead employees. When Isabelle starts investigating, someone tries to kill her too. This delightfully humorous, suspenseful mystery takes the reader on a neatly twisted path to its solution, complete with clever means and an ingenious motive. Fans of Sarah Mason's Playing James and Jane Blackwood's A Hard Man Is Good To Find will enjoy this. A lively plot, witty dialog, feisty heroine, and idiosyncratic secondary characters make this a must-add for public libraries of all sizes. Bloom also writes the Alex Bernier series (Reliable Sources) as Beth Saulnier and lives in New York City. [See Mystery Prepub, LJ 11/1/04.]-Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L. Syst., AZ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Bloom, who's written as Beth Saulnier about enterprising reporter Alex Bernier (Ecstasy, 2003, etc.), introduces another winning heroine in this tale of murder at a New York media mogul's empire. When her caddish fiance abandons Isabelle Leonard at the altar, Becky Belden, who's part Martha Stewart and part Oprah, descends from her empyrean realm to offer a job to the plucky lass who made headlines by dancing on the table at her reception, taking her best friend on her honeymoon, and donating the furniture the cad had picked out to the Salvation Army. Arriving at Becky Belden Multimedia, Isabelle is daunted both by her job description (what does her boss, Director of Special Projects Lisa Kinne, do, and what's Lisa's assistant supposed to do?) and by the fact that the job opened up because her predecessor, Marcia Landon, was pushed in front of a subway. And Marcia wasn't the only one. In recent months, at least six BBM employees have vanished or fallen victim to hit-and-run drivers, meningitis, drug overdoses, or peanut allergies. What one key could unlock such different doors to death-and is the next door open for Isabelle? An appealing heroine and an intriguing mystery undercut by the world's most unconvincing hit man and an extended finale that leaves the killer at large-not, it's to be hoped, for the encore Isabelle so richly deserves. Author tour
