Too Pretty To Die

by: Susan McBride

Published by: Avon Books

Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart

I’m upset at Avon Books. They’ve decided to shake up their mystery line and have dropped one of my favorite cozy writers, Susan McBride. And that, dear readers, is why this review is so late in coming. I got my hands on a galley copy of Too Pretty to Die in November 2007 and voraciously read Andy Kendricks latest escapade cover to cover in three nights.

Too Pretty To Die is the fifth and final installment of the Debutante Dropout Mystery series. Maybe that’s a good things because it seems that dropout debs are turning up everywhere in the bios of a host of young writers–like Cornelia Read. But always keep in mind that Susan McBride was the first to write about a woman named Andy who was just too hard-headed to do what her Momma wanted.

This time, Andy gets dragged to a “pretty party” by her society reporter friend Janet, who is looking for the big story that will save her career. At this party the Dallas elite get Botoxed as they drink champagne and backstab each other. In stumbles Dallas’ most beautiful new anchor, Miranda DuBouis, and takes a pot shot at the doctor with the magic needles. It seems that something went astray during Miranda’s last visit to Dr. Madhavi and her face is so deformed that her career may well be over.

Andy, in a gesture of compassion and an overabundant need to get the heck out of Dodge–and back to her dude whom she left sleeping in her bed–drives the drunk Miranda home and leaves her snoring it off. Then Miranda turns up dead and Andy becomes “the last person to see Miranda Dubois” alive.

Too Pretty To Die is an easy read with enough twists to keep me guessing who did it. It is also McBride’s best-written book yet. Readers who follow McBride can see her become a better writer with each book. Still, unlike Miranda, McBride’s career is not over. She’s signed with Delacourt and is busily fulfilling a contract with books about debs for a young adult audience.

Armchair Interviews says: McBride is a good storyteller.

Author’s Web site: http://www.SusanMcBride.com