Hotel South Dakota

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Summary: A winner!
Review: In Delphi, SD, nobody's drop-dead beautiful. Nobody (except the librarian) is wealthy. And nobody's perfect. But you'll love them all. The mystery's a winner, too.

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Summary: Good local color
Review: Much fun. I graduated from an Iowa small town school well before the 1969 of this book, but it was (is) all familiar. She has the setting right; I particularly liked the discription of the men following the football up and down the sidelines. Liked it enough to look up her others and order them tonite

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Summary: likeable female character
Review: Somewhat reminiscent of the Hamish MacBeth series of M.C.Beaton, these stories are local, relaxing, and likeable. An easy read, without complexities with no need to suspend disbelief by an educated reader.

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Summary: Parallel Mysteries
Review: The folks in Delphi South Dakota are planning a big high school reunion and reminiscing about the past. One of the things they are remembering is the death of Butchie Pendergast in 1969 at a kegger party by the river following the Homecoming celebrations. At the time, it was assumed to be a drowning accident. But was it? Twenty years later history seems to be repeating itself and Tory Bauer wants to know the truth. Along with a good mystery, told with humor and suspense, there are some good life lessons served up in this one. I've read three Tory Bauer mysteries now, and every one of them is a winner.

Rating:
Summary: Parallel Mysteries
Review: The folks in Delphi South Dakota are planning a big high school reunion and reminiscing about the past. One of the things they are remembering is the death of Butchie Pendergast in 1969 at a kegger party by the river following the Homecoming celebrations. At the time, it was assumed to be a drowning accident. But was it? Twenty years later history seems to be repeating itself and Tory Bauer wants to know the truth. Along with a good mystery, told with humor and suspense, there are some good life lessons served up in this one. I've read three Tory Bauer mysteries now, and every one of them is a winner.

Rating:
Summary: A high school reunion brings dath in its'wake
Review: THE HOTEL SOUTH DAKOTA Kathleen Taylor Avon, Mar 1997, $5.99, 304 pp. ISBN 0-380-78356-8 The South Dakota town of Delphi is going all out for the festivities surrounding its seventy-fifth anniversary Football Homecoming parade/game and the All School Reunion that would follow. Even waitress Tory Bover, who couldn't care about sports, is caught up in the enthusiasm. Tory is excited because Janelle Ross, known to the rest of the world as J. Ross Nelson, Hollywood actress and tabloid star is returning to her hometown for the first time in twenty five years. She left unexpectedly after a friend of hers drowned in the Jim River and was never seen anywhere near-south Dakota again. Just like twenty five years ago the old timers have a second after football party at the Jim River, and just like the first one, somebody else dies. This time it is the obnoxious bullying football coach Doug Fischbach. Doug had played a key drama in the first party as well since he ran off with Janelle only to return (sans Janelle) three days later, smirking and smug. Now Janelle is missing and the whole town is in an uproar trying to piece together what happened. Tony, who thinks there is a connection between the two deaths even though they occurred twenty-five years apart, is determined to discover the link in order to get at the truth, no matter who gets hurt, even herself. Readers who found SEX AND SALMONELLA entertaining, witty and exciting will be even more enthralled with the HOTEL SOUTH DAKOTA, the latest Tory Bover mystery. The denizens of Delphi are a fascinating and eccentric lot with more layers than an onion, but they are so down home that readers will find themselves wishing they lived in a town exactly like that one. It is the heroine, an overweight middle aged widow who has more spunk, personality, and courage than she knows what to do with, who captures attention and hearts. A terrific read by a very talented and multidimensional author. Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A high school reunion brings dath in its'wake
Review: THE HOTEL SOUTH DAKOTAKathleen TaylorAvon, Mar 1997, $5.99, 304 pp. ISBN 0-380-78356-8 The South Dakota town of Delphi is going all out for the festivities surrounding its seventy-fifth anniversary Football Homecoming parade/game and the All School Reunion that would follow. Even waitress Tory Bover, who couldn't care about sports, is caught up in the enthusiasm. Tory is excited because Janelle Ross, known to the rest of the world as J. Ross Nelson, Hollywood actress and tabloid star is returning to her hometown for the first time in twenty five years. She left unexpectedly after a friend of hers drowned in the Jim River and was never seen anywhere near-south Dakota again. Just like twenty five years ago the old timers have a second after football party at the Jim River, and just like the first one, somebody else dies. This time it is the obnoxious bullying football coach Doug Fischbach. Doug had played a key drama in the first party as well since he ran off with Janelle only to return (sans Janelle) three days later, smirking and smug. Now Janelle is missing and the whole town is in an uproar trying to piece together what happened. Tony, who thinks there is a connection between the two deaths even though they occurred twenty-five years apart, is determined to discover the link in order to get at the truth, no matter who gets hurt, even herself. Readers who found SEX AND SALMONELLA entertaining, witty and exciting will be even more enthralled with the HOTEL SOUTH DAKOTA, the latest Tory Bover mystery. The denizens of Delphi are a fascinating and eccentric lot with more layers than an onion, but they are so down home that readers will find themselves wishing they lived in a town exactly like that one. It is the heroine, an overweight middle aged widow who has more spunk, personality, and courage than she knows what to do with, who captures attention and hearts. A terrific read by a very talented and multidimensional author. Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Mixed up series
Review: This is a great advance on the one before it, which apparently had two titles and two publishers and was really the second in the series. There's a site called "stop you're killing me" which helps to solve that mystery. The heroine/detective, Tory Bauer, is an overweight widowed waitress.
It's full of American high school ambience, which I'm not familiar with but found intriguing. It centers on a high school reunion in a small town in the upper Midwest. A death ocurred thirty years previously and the circumstances of that death are mysteriously re-enacted. Partly because they're all middle-aged mid-Westerners (do I put capital letters in the right place?} the large cast of characters gets confusing but after the first hundred pages I figured who was who and then it rapidly accelerates into a page turner (but without any major violence) towards the end.

Rating:
Summary: A fun book!
Review: This is the third in a series of Tory Bauer Mysteries. Tory Bauer is a forty-somthing, widowed waitress who inadvertently and against her will stumbles on to mysteries. It is very funny and interesting how the story from the past and the present intertwine. I loved it and had a blast reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Read the Prologue and Chapter 1 on my web page
Review: You can read the Prologue and Chapter 1 of THE HOTEL SOUTH DAKOTA on my web page. http://www.basec.net/~ktaylor/