I'm a fan of Vallere's Mad for Mod series but I may be an even bigger fan of this series.  This is the first book of the series and I really enjoyed it.  It has the characteristics of a cozy mystery but to me, it has a little bit more style and polish than some other series, it feels a bit more contemporary.  No crafts, no homemade jelly, no candlemaking classes.  Lots of fashion and gorgeous shoes.

Samantha Kidd has quit her job as the shoe buyer for a New York department store to move back to her home town and work as the Trend Specialist for the local department store.  She's also buying her parent's house as they have decided to move someplace warmer in retirement.  Her first day of work starts with a bang as she finds her boss dead in the elevator and no one seems to know that she's been hired.  Obviously, both of these situations present difficulties for Samantha.  Since she is back in her old home town, she runs into old friends from high school as well as people she knew in New York as she attempts to keep herself from being arrested for murder and to make her mortgage payment at the same time.  It's a lot of fun (for us, not for her)!

I've always loved seeing behind the scenes of things we're only supposed to see the front of so the behind the scenes look at a department store are very interesting to me.  I loved Samantha as soon as I met her and the characters she encounters are well-developed.  The mystery is good, the characters are likeable.  The book has several flaws.  She doesn't tell the police what they need to know.  She gets herself into situations that are not very believable.  She doesn't just march into the HR department of the store and figure out what's going on.  But the storytelling and characterization overcome those flaws and I just found it highly entertaining.  Another win for Diane Vallere.

With Vics You Get Eggroll continues the fun and the good quality of writing that I've enjoyed in the first two books of this series. It also gives us growth and development of the characters.  That's a pretty good thing in the world of today's cozy mysteries.  It's a win with me.

Madison Night, the ultimate Doris Day fan and mid-century modern designer, barely has time to recover from her last detective adventure when women start being abducted in the Dallas area someone is try to implicate her friend and potential love interest, Detective Tex Allen  in the crimes.  Tex takes a leave of absence from the police so that he won't hinder the investigation but, of course he is determined to find the killer and, of course, Madison is determined to help him.  She's also in the middle of a job, restoring a Cliff May home to its original mid-century appearance.  I'm a huge fan of mid-century modern so I looked up Cliff May homes on google and wow!  They are gorgeous!  And probably much easier to heat than my big ol' Victorian.  Anyway, because cozies are nothing without coincidence, Madison's client becomes a victim of the kidnapper.  It has a satisfying ending with plenty of clues along the way.  I figured it out the same time Madison did.

I think the characters in this series are really solid compared to some of the fluffier cozy series out there.  They don't feel cardboard, they feel flesh and blood.  Madison has a lot of introspection in this book and a lot of character growth.  That the author manages to do that in a fun mystery is fairly rare. 

I always want to go find a Doris Day movie as soon as I finish a book in this series.  As long as the author keeps writing them, I'll keep reading them.

Book provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am usually scrupulous about reading a series in order.  In fact, my sister and I have had this discussion several times because she is willing to run willy-nilly through a series in any way she wants and I insist on going from start to finish. This series, however, I read out of order.  And it didn't matter.  I loved them all.

Front Page Fatality is the first of the Headlines in High Heels series.  Nichelle is the crime and court reporter for the Richmond Telegraph and she loves designer shoes. She also loves beating her main rival, the reporter at Channel 10, to the big stories.  This one begins with a boat accident.  It happens while she's out having dinner with a friend so she's late to the scene and her rival is already on television with the story.  This story, however, goes a lot deeper than just a boating accident and as Nichelle digs deeper, someone is trying to stop her from finding out that rest-of-the-story that she is sure is there.  It doesn't help that her supportive boss has a heart attack and she's left dealing with a very non-supportive replacement that wants to give her job to his girlfriend.  Add a sexy mafioso that shows up in her living room and Nichelle is having an interesting week.

This series has all the fun a cozy mystery reader is looking for along with the atmosphere I like.  It also draws you into Nichelle's world in a way that lesser writers miss when trying to write this genre.  I read the 2nd, 3rd and 4th books in the series because I had gotten them from Netgalley.  As soon as I finished the fourth one I logged right onto Amazon and bought this one.  It enjoyed it that much.  I felt like this one may have had a few more f-bombs in it, which I hate, than the next 3 but I don't count them so I don't know for sure.  They aren't pervasive but I don't like them at all.  Anyway, this is a series that restores my hope for the contemporary American cozy.

Admittedly, this is the first book in this series, which is now stands at 23, that I have read. This book is number 21 in the series. I realize that will color my view since I don’t have background with this series but I have to wonder if this book is representative of the series. If it is, I’m thrilled that I haven’t wasted my time. If it’s not, then it was a particularly bad introduction. It is a complete miss to me as a mystery lover.

If you want to know all the ills that have been visited on the Virginia Indian tribes, and I’m sure they are have indeed been mistreated in the past, then this is the book for you. If you need to know what there is to know about organic farming methods, then this is the book for you. If you want to know how evil capitalists are, then this is the book for you. If you want a good mystery, move along.

It has a promising start. The first murder victim is found hung up as a scarecrow, shortly before Halloween. Of course, our MC Harry is one of the people that find him and is determined to solve the case even though she is repeatedly warned by others to stop or be careful. The mystery just really doesn’t go anywhere and we’re certainly not given the clues to solve the case. It seems as if the mystery is just a reason for the author to state her worldviews. I don’t like being hit over the head with a hammer when I’m just looking for some entertainment.

I suspect that if I had read the other books in this series, I might be quite fond of these characters. Meeting them brand new, not so much. They come across as self-righteous and self-important.

By the way, the title has nothing to do with the story. There is no litter of anything. I assumed there might be kittens or something but there isn’t. Just 2 full grown cats and a dog.

There are obviously a lot of fans of this series or there wouldn’t be so many books. So, is it worth my time to go back and try an earlier book or should I just move along?

I received this through Netgalley and appreciated the opportunity to read and review it.