Taking the Wrap : A Mandy Dyer Mystery

Rating:
Summary: upbeat, often funny amateur sleuth
Review: While Laura was at the Rendezview Restaurant someone took her coat while she was taking photographs so she borrowed the last coat that was on the rack. In Laura's coat was a role of film she would like to get back and in the stranger's coat is a stamped envelope, a bottle of aspirin and a box of matches. Laura wants her friend Mandy, owner and proprietor of Dyer's Cleaning, to call other cleaners in the area to see if they have her coat. She figures they might be able to identify the other coat owner by tracing the laundry logs.

When Laura leaves the cleaning store, a car deliberately hits her, breaking her le:, Mandy rushes her to the hospital. When Laura is released, Mandy goes over to her apartment with some Chinese food to cheer her up only someone in the apartment hits her from behind. Mandy thinks that her unknown assailant is looking for the photos or the coat and starts another one of her investigations that almost gets her killed.

TAKING THE WRAP is an upbeat, often funny amateur sleuth mystery due to the heroine's mother's visit to take care of Laura and help Mandy in her investigation. All that does is make a bad situation worse when she tells people things they don't need to know. In between her botched matchmaking efforts, Mandy does the impossible and finds the coat that belonged to Laura's friend who no longer needs it because someone killed her. Two other people who were at the Rendezview also turn up murdered, leaving Mandy to connect the dots and find the perpetrator before Laura joins the morgue.

Harriet Klausner