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Title: Claire and Present Danger (An Amanda Pepper Mystery)
ISBN: 0449007367
Author:
Gillian Roberts
Publicate Date: 2004-10-26
Publish: 2004-10-26
List Price: $6.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.80
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $6.99
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1: Female Psychology to the Rescue
Claire and Present Danger is a murder mystery in the Amanda Pepper series. Our heroine is recently engaged to C K McKenzie who has left his position as a homicide detective and is now a student at Penn State. She is also a teacher at a not too prestigious private school and this story takes place during the first days of the new school year. To make ends meet for the student and teacher who are planning their future lives together, Amanda takes on a part-time job helping CK as a Private Investigator. All of these factors swirl about and contribute their own patina to the meat of the story.
The story itself revolves around a different relationship. It seems that an attractive widow appeared in Philadelphia's social circles and very quickly ensnared one of the most eligible bachelors in town. A bachelor, who has made a lot of money, no less! The fly in the ointment is that the bachelor's mother - Claire Fairchild - is suspicious of the young widow and gets even more suspicious when anonymous letters appear in her mailbox claiming to know that the young widow has a history of her previous husbands and lovers dying in semi-mysterious situations. Of course, the mother is now worried about what kind of gold digger is spinning her son's head and she call in the Investigative team.
Amanda really wants to help work the case for the money and the prestige. Not only will this help her PI career, but it will help distract her from the pressures of meeting her future in-laws for the first time; introducing them to her own parents; getting a handle on the new students that she has; dealing with the ditzy secretary at her school; dealing with the headmaster; dealing with a domineering mother of one of her new students; dealing with the apparent teenage problems of another of her new students; and on and on.
Due to all these factors, it really seems to me as if the murder storyline almost interferes with the story of Amanda's complicated life. The author does a nice job of pulling all the threads together towards the end of the book and the conclusion is satisfying because we could see it coming in echoes of the other threads in this story.
The writing is light and witty. Introducing major characters like a new mother-in-law can be difficult and the way this book handles it is by creating a very memorable, colorful, and "unusual" character who will probably play a large part in any future volumes of this series. I mean, how can you resist a lady from the South who claims she is a witch and performs her witchcraft in the Northeast United States on her very first visit?
The one thing that marred this story for me somewhat was the excessive self-introspection and thoughts about female to female relationships during the teenage years that this book is chock full of. Maybe because I am of the male persuasion, I had a hard time understanding why Amanda is so full of remorse and has to explain various episodes and behaviors in great detail. I will admit that I found her description of the difference between how men and women deal with telephone conversations to be absolutely hysterical, but the wittiness fails after you realize how much of this book is devoted to this kind of self-analyzing psychotherapy.
I will read other Amanda Pepper mysteries because I enjoyed the wit of the author and the setup of the characters (as improbable as they are). I recommend you try this one to see if you like it as well.
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2: Starts out good but leaves you hanging
I'm back and forth with this author. I will read one of her books, find it promising but ultimately unsatisfying, and then after awhile I'll give her another chance. Once again, with this book the author starts out with some interesting characters and promising ideas. Then it's as if the author got tired of the book and decided to finish it up as fast as she could, bringing everything to a big pile-up at the end like a multi-car crash. If she had taken her time to develop the characters and plot lines better, instead of just throwing all the ingredients into the pot and expecting them to develop by themselves, this would have been a far more satisfying read. As it was, I felt cheated. Amanda spends more time anticipating things than dealing with them when they actually occur. CK seems like an afterthought, despite their upcoming nuptuals. I eagerly awaited the teacher's response to a nasty episode of bullying and couldn't believe it when she basically said, "Oh well, it's probably best in the long run if the bullied student just leaves because you can't beat human nature." What happened to Batya? What happened to Olivia and her tormentor? What happened with the bully's mother? What really happened with the two female protagonists? I was left confused by Amanda's relationship with Beth and equally confused about her marriage plans -- if she was so hesitant about setting a date, why bother? Do all characters have to marry these days? This book left me frustrated and feeling, yet again, that I need to skip this author in the future.
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3: This book has less "mystery" than I expected
A lot of the focus of the book was on "detective" Amanda Popper's engagement to her former homicide detective boyfriend CK Macalester. She is about to meet his parents for the first time and they are about to meet her parents and she's worried -- will his parents approve of her? Will there be conflict between the sets of parents? What will she wear? And then there are classroom scenes (Amanda teaches English at a private school in Philadelphia) -- seemingly irrelevant, although it becomes clear that there is thematic unity between the classroom issues and the mystery that unfolds.
Amanda and CK (he's quit his job and is getting a PhD in criminology) have a part-time partnership as private investigators, mostly doing background checks. Amanda is sent to interview someone requesting a background check, just to make sure this is on the up and up. It turns out this woman wants a background check on her future DIL -- which makes Amanda rather upset as she faces the prospect of meeting her own future inlaws. But there is reason to be concerned, so Amanda takes on the job.
Much of the book is spent on subplots (classroom scenes and meet-the-inlaws stuff) and yet in the end, you can see how it all fits together and was not as irrelevant as it seemed as you were reading it. This was a fairly masterful accomplishment from a literary viewpoint.
I stopped short of giving the book five stars because I nevertheless would have liked a bit more mystery. I plan to read this whole series, though, because I really like Amanda Popper and Gillian Robert's literate, witty style.
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4: Good book. But it's time to dump the "hero".
A light, enjoyable read. I truly like Amanda Pepper. But... I've finally figured out the big flaw in this series, or rather in the relationship between Amanda and CK. Simply put, the man that Amanda intends to marry absolutely REFUSES to take her seriously. Over and over again, she has proven herself to be an intelligent, competent woman. But over and over again, CK just laughs and pats her on the head whenever she states an opinion that HE doesn't agree with. CK is truly the most passive-aggressive character that I have ever "read". And the advice that Amanda gets from her future mother-in-law, married to the same type of man? "Oh, you'll learn how to manage him." How quaint. Run, Amanda!
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5: Who is Emmie Cade and why did she change her name so much?
Amanda Pepper is a high school teacher at Philly Prep in Philadelphia. She is also engaged to C. K. Mackenzie, former homicide cop and now studying to get his PhD in criminology and moonlighting as a PI with Ozzie. Amanda is moonlighting working with Mackenzie. Mackenzie sends her to do an interview. She wants to do a good job on this her first solo investigation. Claire Fairchild doesn't make it easy. She wants Amanda to investigate her future daughter-in-law, Emmie. The problem is that Claire gives Amanda sketchy information about Emmie -- she says that this is why she wants her investigated. Amanda meets Emmie and likes her. Amanda is about to meet her future in-law's and is not sure she wants to investigate Emmie. But there are the anonymous letters Mrs. Fairchild received about Emmie. When Amanda begins probing into Emmie's past, she finds there was a fatal accident that may have been murder. There are more questions about accidents in her past. Then things heat up when more things start happening. Is Emmie behind them or a victim herself? Amanda rushes to find the truth before it is too late. I have enjoyed this series for some time. This is the best one yet as I enjoyed Amanda working with Mackenzie on this case. Yes, he still had his doubts and didn't go along with everything Amanda came up with, but I felt they were on the same side most of the time. I also enjoy Amanda's interaction with her high school students. It is fun getting a glimpse into that side of her life in each book, some more than others. I hope Mackenzie will become more involved in the stories in the future now that he is a PI. The introduction of Mackenzie's parents is very interesting. His mother is a real character. I highly recommend this book. It is a great cozy mystery.
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