Death and the Lit Chick (St. Just Mystery #2) by G.M. Malliet

Death and the Lit Chick (St. Just Mystery #2) Reviews

• 
  Pamelabyoung

  A wonderful mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, this book includes an enormous cast of characters that, surprisingly, is not confusing. The author includes a long, detailed cast list at the beginning of the book and, at first glance, I thought I would not be able to keep up with them all. However, the author introduces each of them well and begins to weave an intricate web of interconnectedness that is fascinating and really hard to put down. I read this in one long Sunday afternoon and feel as though I know this group of often annoying, sometimes sympathetic, generally self-centered writers.
  
  The setting is a medieval Scottish castle outside of Edinburgh and the author delighted this reader by including a map of the castle. I love a book with a map! DCI St. Just is an engaging central character who is invited to a writers' conference to lead a session on real crime, but ends up having to solve one when one of the writers is murdered. I hated for the book to end and immediately looked up the other 3 books by G.M. Malliet, which I intend to read soon. How nice to read a well-written, classic mystery.
• 
  Laura

  Huh-larious. From the woman who brought us Death and the Cozy Writer comes a new installment of murder among spectacularly absurd people. This time they’re an assortment of mystery writers at a conference at some Scottish castle. Most of them have a motive for killing the star of the conference, a hack arriviste whose books are obviously inferior and yet, inexplicably, sell better. (The cow probably didn’t even write them herself!) To add insult to injury, she is also a blond knockout who’s about to make off with someone’s husband, or maybe she already did – I can’t remember many details, including who the murderer was, because the mystery is secondary to the amusement. I think the solution somehow hinges on the castle’s floor plan, so pay attention to the map in the front. I always skip that sort of thing because I have no sense of spacial relations. Perfect for wiling away a couple of hours.
• 
  Sharla

  There were holes in the plot big enough to drive a bulldozer through but since it's a farce from start to finish I guess it's okay. It was amusing although I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did the first one.
• 
  Ellie

  I always enjoy
  G.M. Malliet's writing and I love her contribution to fun fiction detectives, St. Just.
  Death and the Lit Chick is the second in the St. Just series and it is a pleasurable English manor mystery, when the manor is filled with mystery writers desperate to be published and one young beautiful author who has scored a major hit with a cross-over genre: mystery a la chick lit a la roman a clef. Everybody has reasons to hate Kimberlee so when she is murdered, the problem is too many people with too many motives. But St. Just, still recovering from the death of his beloved wife may find both professional and personal satisfaction working on this case.
• 
  Kate

  "Wildly successful chick lit mystery writer Kimberlee Kalder is the guest of honor at an exclusive writers' conference at Dalmorton Castle in Scotland. But the fun ends when Kimberlee is found dead at the bottom of the castle's bottle dungeon. Who didn't want to see prima donna Kimberlee brutally extinguished like one of her ill-fated characters? It's up to Detective Chief Inspector St. Just to track down the true killer in a castle full of cagey mystery connoisseurs who live and breathe malicious murder and artful alibis ..."
  ~~back flap
  
  Nice plot; good characterization. But somehow it just didn't grab me -- it seemed ho hum and reminiscent of a lot of other mysteries I've read.
• 
  ☺Trish

  Entertaining mystery set in an atmospheric Scottish castle turned hotel - chock full of turrets, priest holes, a moat & drawbridge, and a bottle dungeon. Three stars for the murder mystery and one extra star for the awesome setting. I have to admit, I am loving G. M. Malliet's characters & story endings!
  On to the next . . .
• 
  Nancy

  What I am enjoying most about this series is how well the author lampoons the subject group. In the first book it was the English aristocracy, in this one it is writers, crime writers in particular. I find it so enjoyable how the characters are written to show the worst of these groups, yet it is all still surrounded by a jolly good crime and a really fun yarn.
• 
  Kyrie

  I liked it, but more for the interactions between the "good guy" characters than for the mystery itself.
  
  
• 
  Rebecca

  Inspector St. Just of Cambridge has the dubious honor of presenting a panel at a mystery writers' conference, which includes a stay at the historic Dalmorton Castle in Scotland along with several authors and publicists from the Drawn Dagger (I think that was the name) publishing house. Among them is the gorgeous and poisonous Kimberlee Kalder, who shot to fame and fortune with her chick lit mystery, 'Dying for a Latte.' Everyone at the castle, it seems has some reason to hate Kimberlee, so it's no real surprise when she's found murdered in the castle dungeon. St. Just teams up with the local inspector to investigate, and finds out just what a desperate and bloody cast of characters mystery writers, agents, and publicists really are. Except for Portia De'Ath, the intelligent and breathtaking author from Cambridge, whom St. Just really hopes is not the murderer...
  
  Malliet writes modern cozy mysteries with just a touch of irony, which I appreciate--she indulges those of us who still really like the traditional British stately home murder, while acknowledging, as if to a good friend, that it's all a bit much. She also delightfully skewers the publishing and writing industry--authors seem to delight in doing that, as Elizabeth Peters does to romance writers--and creates an interesting and colorful cast of characters. She includes a character list and map, reminiscent of Christie, which I also like--I kept referring back to it to keep everything straight. Overall, this is just a fun cozy mystery in a Scottish castle (what could be better?), made believable for a modern audience as the castle is a hotel and everyone has laptops. The one thing I didn't quite believe was that Inspector Moor would so thoroughly turn over the investigation to an unknown inspector from England, but I'll overlook that. Otherwise, full marks. There's even a ghost.
• 
  Monique

  Okay so started this novel before an international trip and finished it on the plane and didnt really like the ending, it seemed rushed and contrived to me and the story had so much promise..Okay so this is a mystery along the same vein of one of my favorite mysteries And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie with the smart and thought provoking premise of a group of mystery writers convening in a castle when one particularly annoying author is murderered and because of the eerie secluded setting they are stranded..with a murderer...Okay so what I really did enjoy in this book is the most well drawn character and ultimately the murder victim Kimberlee, a seemingly ditzy and silly girl who penned a rare money making novel aimed at the twenty and thirty-something females of the world, a literary breath of fresh air to everyone but her fellow writers..Kimberlee is portrayed as silly and somewhat spiteful and every mystery writer gathered in the castle have ample reason to hate her and want her gone and it is up to Detective St. Just, the brillant but boring detective stuck there to solve the case..I must admit the conclusion was well thought out and had me stumped at first until the delicious realization that the mystery is solved settles in but overall I think there should have been more there to make it believable...it was better now that I think about it but a good read that maybe should get a 2.5 rating, would definitely read more by the author, hopefully Detective St. Just gets more interesting and fleshed out..
• 
  Andrea

  This is the first narrated audiobook I've tried (I've listened to books before, but using the entertainly unmusical and robotic voice that comes with my phone). It's quite difficult to separate my opinion of the book from the narration - I'm fairly sure the story would have read slightly differently to me if I'd read it instead of listened to it.
  
  However, I can listen to books during my day job! I'm trialling a Scribd subscription, which makes audiobooks not so financially steep a prospect.
  
  This is a murder featuring a Cambridge detective who has been invited to a mystery writers convention. St Just is an okay detective, a bit...whiny about his desire to explore a new-found passion for a woman he's met, instead of investigating a murder.
  
  The story itself is tremendously arch, full of in-jokes and digs at the mystery writer community. The narration - by Davina Porter - is very skilled, but at the same time exacerbates the arch air. [I also couldn't stand the breathy little-girl voice she used for a few of the women.]
  
  I may check out another in this series (this turned out to be book 2), but it definitely falls into the "okay" not "compulsive" range.
• 
  judy

  So how many mysteries have you read where a gaggle of authors head to a conference and one of the dies? Yep. In this one, however, the author seems to be having a bit of fun with us by reviving some classic British mystery scenes and adding cell phones and laptops. I knew instantly where the book was going but the writing was bright and amusing enough to keep me on board. The ending was a bit "meh" but it could have been much worse. I shudder to think of, perhaps, a hot summer day where our hero and heroine run to each other from opposite sides of the bridge. Fortunately, the author was doing a spoof of mysteries and not romances. I missed the first book in the series and have the sense that I should have started there. Of course, my library system doesn't have Book 1 but oh well.
• 
  Megan

  This is not actually a chick lit book. It starts a male detective trying to solve a murder at a mystery writer's conference. It is pretty good, and has some funny moments based around writing a mystery staring characters who write mysteries. However, the big reveal was based largely around not mentioning certain details to the reader. Sure, that made it harder to guess one of our conspirators, but it's the cheap way to do it.
• 
  Caroline

  Wonderful! So glad I got this book at Malice! Can't wait to read the one before this and the one after now. Arthur St. Just is a really good character and the send off of the mystery-writing field is hilarious. Really recommend.
• 
  Deb

  G.M. Malliet won all kinds of nominations and awards for the first in the series. With the second, she's going to do it again. Love St. Just.
• 
  Kate Collins

  I loved this book. Witty, great characters, intrigue, and entertaining. Exactly what I needed.
• 
  Lizzytish

  Take a castle in Scotland, a dark and stormy night, rumors of a haunting stirred together with a group of mystery writers and you have a recipe for murder. Along with a sprinkling of humor.
• 
  Bonnie

  This book was a lot of fun and the denouement was surprising.
• 
  Phoebe

  It was alright; though I would have preferred the murder to happen earlier. The prologue was boring and unnecessary- although the epilogue was okay.
• 
  Persis Menon

  Amazing as usual!!! Can't wait to get to the next of the series.
• 
  Lori

  Audible version: This one just makes you giggle the whole way through as it was about a conference for mystery writers and they all hate the super successful young writer because her books are all high heels, bouncy hair, and cell phones and theirs are becoming a bit stale. The cast of characters are all perfectly drawn. I like this G.M. Malliet! I bought all three of these St. Just Mysteries, and I'm guessing I'll get around to the 3rd one soon as these are the perfect listens for puzzling and cozy evenings indoors. And Florida right now is the perfect time for fluffy down comforters, wool socks, hot cocoa, and delightful mystery that keeps you giggling throughout! Davina Porter is the PERFECT narrator and possibly is the real reason I love these so much!
• 
  Shannon

  I'm giving this 4 stars because I once again failed to pinpoint the murderer. This may be partly due to the fact I occasionally tune this out when I'm listening and doing other things (I find this does happen with audiobooks), and it may be due somewhat to the narrator's voice (it lulls me), but I'm going to give credit that it may also be due to the writer.
  
  I'm not overly impressed with this series simply because both books have been focused on writers and their lives, with a lot of what feels like snide, inside jabs at the industry and genre writers. Fun, but I'm not overly invested in the investigator or the mysteries to-date.
• 
  Megan

  Great writing style and humorous homage to the genre. Well, to several genres. Clever and fun, but points taken away for what I took to be a pointless romantic addition/sideplot and an ending that made me feel cheated--Malliet seemed to rely too heavily on that old, ought-to-be-descredited-by-now trope of "let's make the murderer the least likely character without sprinkling enough clues along". Still, there was enough there to make me request the first one from the library and strongly consider checking out some of the other series Malliet's written.
• 
  Ivonne Rovira

  Author
  G.M. Malliet has the same fun with backstabbing mystery writers in Death of the Lit Chick as she did with the traditional British house mystery in
  Death of a Cozy Writer. In this second novel to feature Detective Chief Inspector St. Just, the police inspector has been dispatched to lecture a convention of mystery writers gathered on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland. Readers can begin with the series with Death of the Lit Chick without having read the first novel. Indeed, this novel might make for a better introduction. Unlike in Death of a Cozy Writer, in which DCI St. Just doesn’t appear until 40 percent of the way through the novel, St. Just is on the scene almost right away in Death of the Lit Chick — a great improvement — even if, sadly, without his faithful Sergeant Fear this time! And we finally discover what St. Just’s given name is!
  
  In Death of the Lit Chick, Kimberlee Kalder, a fatuous and narcissistic silver-blonde beauty has taken the mystery world by storm with her debut novel, Dying for a Latte -- a novel that appears to be
  Kyra Davis'
  Sex, Murder And A Double Latte transferred to the world of
  Lauren Weisberger's
  The Devil Wears Prada. I’m not sure what Ms. Davis did to offend Ms. Malliet, but I’m pretty sure that, after this book was released, the pair are no longer on speaking terms!
  
  Nor is Kyra Davis the only one satirized in this cleverly amusing book: The misogynistic Tom Brackett is clearly intended to call the prickly
  Tom Clancy to mind, while Annabelle Pace’s “plucky, zany, forensic-scientist sleuth” is clearly a twee version of
  Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan. Part of the fun of reading Death of the Lit Chick is trying to figure out who the various fictional mystery writers are supposed to represent. Some I couldn’t quite figure out. Was Magretta Sincock with her women-in-jeopardy suspense plots supposed to be
  Angela Carter? Or
  Daphne du Maurier?
  Judith Krantz?
  Shannon K. Butcher? Or someone else altogether? I never did twig who the elegant and affable Joan Elksworthy, the Scottish ex-pat living in Santa Fe, was supposed to be. Nor did I suss out the identities of the sweet has-been writer Rachel Twalley, the conniving publicist Jay Fforde (surely not a dig at
  Jasper Fforde?), the boozy skirt-chasing American publicist B.A. King, or the skeletal, craggy-faced writer Winston Chatley. And just who was the sympathetic character sporting the nom de plume of Portia De’Ath meant to be? An alter ego for Malliet herself? I suspect that De’Ath, with her twee name, is Malliet since she ends up being the love interest for St. Just. And was the publishing magnate Lord Easterbrook a send-up of the press lord Lord Beaverbrook?
  
  Regardless of who the thinly disguised fictional characters might be, St. Just is still in a particular quandary. Who could have had a motive to kill Kimberlee Kalder, no matter how much of a self-absorbed mean girl she was? With mystery writers as the cast of suspects, St. Just has more trouble than usual eliciting clues. As Portia De’Ath points out about the suspects: “Remember, these people lie for a living: They write novels.”
  
  Lastly, Death of the Lit Chick is one of the few times that Lord Bulwer-Lytton’s opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night,” was used to good effect. And that isn’t Malliet’s only masterly touch: Would-be mystery writer Donna Doone has penned a prehistoric mystery that’s Nick and Nora of The Thin Man recast as the investigative Ugmay and Desirooma. Queried by Desirooma as to how he knows that Bad Batmo is the murderer, the eloquent Ugmay replies: “Me no know, but me find out. Look, see scratches on Black Rock? He no fall, he push.” Ah, a Dashiell Hammett novel for the ages -- the Stone Ages!
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed Death of a Cozy Writer; however, I find that Death of the Lit Chick involves more clever twists and funnier skewering of the conventions. Malicious? Yes, but also delicious! While I wouldn’t want to befriend Malliet (who would want to be fodder for her next novel?), I wouldn’t want to miss her next St. Just novel, either.