Who Killed Marilyn Monroe?

Liz Evans

Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)

Vetch beamed, his shiny skin stretching even tighter, like a balloon that had just had another puff of air blown into it. 'Mr Drysdale would like you to discover who killed Marilyn Monroe.'

Visions of all-expenses-paid trips to California started to dance in front of my eyes. Half my mind was already trying to remember where I'd last seen bikinis and snorkelling gear. Vetch was still speaking.

'Perhaps you'd like to see a photograph of the victim?'

He extracted a print from the folder and passed it over.

I glanced down at the glossy black and white eight by ten. There was no mistaking the fair hair, huge brown eyes half covered by a sweep of seductive lashes, and soft velvet lips slightly parted over a row of gleaming white teeth.

It was a bloody donkey!

Review by Chrissi (010302) Rating (7/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 7/10
No, this is not about the Icon that inspired Candle in the Wind, but about a seaside donkey. Apparently all seaside donkeys are geldings, as they are more tolerant, unfortunately the poor things are vulnerable to names of both sexes. Here we get to meet Errol, Lana and the recently deceased Marilyn.

With a title like that, I was expecting an amusing female detective story, rather like the adventures of Stephanie Plum, but it is rather more serious than that. Grace Smith is a nice lady, financially challenged, who is offered a job investigating the death of the donkey by his owner. The police do not seem very interested in the case, thinking that it is all very messy but a one off, sordid donkey murder, with no motive and little chance of it happening again.

Grace is a feisty female in the line of Kinsey Milhone, owns only one feminine outfit, lives in a kind of uniform, and is not afraid to do a little breaking and entering when the situation calls for it. She starts her investigation, only to find that it all points to a robbery and murder committed many years ago, but the mystery was never solved, although a man was sent to prison for the crime, it was all rather unsatisfactory.

Perhaps it was the expectation of a more amusing story that gives me a slight state of anticlimax, or the bright yellow and black graphics of the cover, but although I enjoyed this for being a well-constructed, well-paced thriller, I was never quite sure whether there was something that I was missing, like the funny bits.

Having finished it, though, I find that I would most certainly read more if the author were kind enough to write another story for us. I liked Grace, and her friends, and I would like to know what happened with the younger Mr Drysdale...
Chrissi (1st March 2002)