"Dirty deeds at the Renaissance Fair"
Reviewed by Clare O'Beara
Posted July 5, 2018
Mystery Woman Sleuth | Romance
At the start of this Renaissance Fair murder mystery, I
found myself thinking that some people are never satisfied.
A senior lady has become a millionaire with her herbal bath
salts and lotions, but she's pestering her family to get
her a contract with a major store for bigger and better
distribution. You know, there is something to be said for
keeping it simple and keeping control of your own stocks,
supplies, and website sales. Mia Connors is the geek girl
under pressure to get the contract. But just now, she has
more urgent matters on her mind. In THE GEEK GIRL'S GUIDE TO ARSENIC a gentleman who tries a
sample from the Renaissance Fair stand promptly collapses
and dies. Surely the lavender bath bomb wasn't to blame?
Nor the hand lotion? Was the timing coincidental or was
someone out to get him? Mia has to work to clear the
family's name -- and salvage her grandmother's Guinevere's
Golden Beauty business. Readers of the first book in the Geek
Girl series will
recall that Mia is a computer programmer at a gated housing
development. She has now moved there to live and, typically,
she goes home and Googles the dead man, an artist. He seems
to have been mixed up with criminals and even racketeering.
Next thing, Mia is recalled to the fair where the beauty
goods stand has been torched overnight -- perhaps to destroy
evidence. Unfortunately a local news camera team is on the
spot. The action keeps moving from the sublime to the scary as the
book
progresses. Butter sculptures of a Civil War horse are in one
paragraph and community Wi-Fi problems are in the next. People
dedicated to authentic costumes mingle with those developing
new computer games. Mia does progress in her personal life,
but still manages to scare off most men, while making the
police distrust her. I enjoyed this look at Mia's life and the background of a
week-long craft fair, where you never can be sure who is
who, and whose gun is an authentic reproduction and whose
will shoot paintballs. THE GEEK GIRL'S GUIDE TO ARSENIC by
Julie Anne Lindsey is just right for modern young women who
like to be on top of technology and down with history.
SUMMARY
It's been three months since Jake Archer rolled into town,
accused Mia Connors of murder and stole her heart. She
hasn't heard from him since. So when a man collapses at the
fall Renaissance Faire, she's surprised to see the US
marshal arrive on scene. And shocked when he points the
finger at her—again. Mia would sooner be able to resurrect
the poor fellow than poison him. Jake Archer's career has been rising fast, but it's about to
come to a crashing halt. The Ren-Faire victim was in
protective custody—Jake's custody—and they were painfully
close to nabbing a major crime boss. If Jake doesn't solve
the murder soon, he'll be fetching donuts instead of
protecting his nation. A difficult enough task without the
alluring Mia Connors in the way. Working with Jake to catch the killer might push Mia into
crazy-cat-lady territory. But with a murderer on the
loose—and Mia's reputation on the line—they'll have to work
fast to find the killer before the killer finds them.
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