No Reality Here

Dating is Murder: A Novel by Harley Jane Kozak
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Contains serious spoilers - you have been warned.  This story was going okay. The previous book was better, but the author made the time-honored mistake there of relenting the sexual tension and letting the main characters hook up.  She had to undo it to free up Wollie in this next situation of date fodder for a reality show.  That's understandable.  And we were going along just fine until the earlobe business.  Yes, it was gruesome and I can tolerate a certain amount of that if we don't have to actually see it (it's just hinted at with the sausage-making imagery etc.), but no Martha-Stewartesque type person would be so inept as to let an earlobe, much less one with an identifying earring (!!!!!) get away from her.  First of all, she'd probably know better than to try to kill someone by cutting their throat.  That is way too messy.  You'd never clean that up, no matter how Martha-Stewarty you were.  If the M-S type were going to kill someone and dispose of the body, she would be much, much more organized.  Kill first and then cut up.  Much less messy.  And she just wouldn't let an earlobe get away.  An experienced cook wouldn't hack away like that.  I don't have an alternative, but this did make me set the book aside and put my head in my hands.
Also, the victim went to Pepperdine and I just don't see that type with that kind of earring, especially the son of a senator.
The characters other than that are nicely realized and likable.  The detecting stuff was delightfully screwball, but I didn't think much of the reality show stuff.  Then again, I haven't watched tv in a couple of decades now and the author is in the bidness, so I shouldn't judge that.


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