Kill Smartie Breedlove

by Joni Rodgers

A deliciously quirky whodunit by the bestselling author of SUGARLAND and THE HURRICANE LOVER…

Recently widowed private dick Shep Hartigate, a dishonored cop reduced to chasing cheating spouses for a ruthless Houston divorce lawyer, teams up with free-spirited pulp fiction writer Smartie Breedlove to find out who’s killing the inconvenient exes of Texas—including Smartie’s BFF, Charma Bovet, a centerfold with a heart of gold.

Could Shep’s gorgeous but unscrupulous employer really have a secret bimbo/mimbo hit list? Or is Smartie Breedlove a few peeps shy of an Easter basket?

A colorful cast of problematic lovers, longsuffering family, and stalwart friends (both two-legged and four-legged) close ranks around Smartie and Shep as they sift clues and maneuver to stay alive. Calling on her longtime companions Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Daphne du Maurier, Smartie finds a roadmap to the hardboiled plot twists and U-turns drawing her perilously close to a damaging past that left her scarred and now threatens to destroy her.

NYT bestselling ghostwriter, author and indie publisher Joni Rodgers is known for creating characters that resonate, dialogue that crackles with wit, and plots that surprise. If you love a great mystery woven with skill, humor and compassion, KILL SMARTIE BREEDLOVE will not disappoint.

Visit www.JoniRodgers.com for bonus content and reading group guide.

Kudos for author Joni Rodgers:
“Rodgers lives, loves and writes without a safety net.”
Entertainment Weekly

"Alternately wrenching and humorous...Rodgers' strength is a knack for realistic characters who show their faults unselfconsciously and a womanly wise, laugh-through-tears appreciation of life."
Publishers Weekly

"Every character resonates with life."
Southern Living Magazine

"Wise [storytelling] choices and the right amount of grit."
Texas Monthly

"Rodgers is a pure storyteller. She writes with a wit, lyricism, humanity and joy that make her books impossible to put down."
Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin

“At its best, her prose is dazzling, risky and intoxicating.”
Pam Houston, bestselling author of Waltzing the Cat

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2012

About the author

NYT bestselling author Joni Rodgers was born into a family of gospel/bluegrass musicians and grew up on stage, opening for huge-haired country music legends of the 60s and 70s. She continued performing until 1994, when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and used the chemo downtime to complete her first two novels, both of which were published to critical acclaim. Joni's memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair (Harper Collins 2001), garnered glowing reviews around the world, was excerpted in Good Housekeeping, condensed by Reader’s Digest, and is still in print after ten years. It also launched Joni's public speaking career and brought her to the attention of celebrities and others who began asking her to help them tell their stories. She's known on both coasts as a ghostwriter, book doctor and memoir guru who applies the fine art of fiction to the creation of well-crafted narrative nonfiction.

Between novels and ghostwriting projects, Joni volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and blogs about books and publishing on "Boxing the Octopus". Married to jet plane mechanic/wine maker Gary Rodgers since 1983, Joni is the proud mother of two fine young adults. She lives in Houston, Texas. Her latest book debuted at #6 on the NYT bestseller list.

“A mix of Moly Ivins' blowsy wit and Anna Quindlen's suburban logic...Rodgers manages the rare literary feat of being funny and painful in one urgent breath.”
~ Entertainment Weekly

Reviews

[Melissa Herman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read!

[Áine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smack Wilder, Smartie Breedlove, Sneak Peek, Accidents Waiting to Happen: We get at least four stories for the price of one. This book is really worth the price of the download!!

We also get a stinging critique of the publishing world:
"He could have gone the self-publishing route. Truly, the stigma's not what it used to be except in the minds of a few academics and New York old-schoolers who actually enjoy living with their heads up each other's asses."

At the risk of sounding clichéd, this very smart, sassy, hugely entertaining novel begins at "The End." But there is nothing clichéd about this book except the ones it lampoons.

Our heroine, Smartie who channels Jessica Fletcher, but with silk dresses and no panties, wants to know all the literally gory details of every crime scene, every technicality of biohazards, she wants to know everything about everything.
"Can I come with?" she asked. "I want to see all your equipment and fracketty foo out there." "Um... sure," said Hewitt.

Smartie writes Smack Wilder novels (within the novel) boasting names like "Get Wilder," "Splatter Cat," "Doggy Style," "Dead Sexy," and you get the picture. She's a bit of a genre writer, I think.

Ms. Rodgers is a character writer. There's a character for everyone in this book and sometimes their names are as hilarious as their situations. There is the gold-digging floozy (Charma) who marries the billionaire. There's "Cardboard Janny" who posthumously controls her widowed husband and posthumously releases books like 'Janny's World: A Ten Year Retrospective of America's Gal Next Door.'

There are Tag Mason, Twyla and Digg, Inky Fujitsu, potential characters in one of Smack's books. There are the unscrupulous divorce lawyers (SPF& E) whose troublesome defendants seem to drop like flies, and whose Suri Fitch which rhymes with witch seems to push every button in Houston.There's Smartie's love interest named Shep (ex cop gone bad) who pants after Suri while Smartie pants after Penn Hewitt, the biohazard man. Let's not forget Herrick and Casilda - heck, there's a cast of well, hundreds, or scores anyhow.

There are double-crosses aplenty and Ms. Rodgers keeps us guessing till the bitter end about "The End." Who really double-crossed whom. Not to mention the surprise relationships that emerge, the red herrings, and the sushi.

There are the book clubbers, except in this case they all write books: The John Buchans(literary fiction) vs. The Quilters(more commercial).

There's folk wisdom like ""Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed."

There's enlightenment and brand new uses for words, like "keelhauled, " as in:
"You're an honest man, Shep. And I feel your pain. I haven't been properly keelhauled since..." She had to think it over for a moment. "Shlomo Taubechik. Guest cantor from Estonia. Five Sukkoths ago." "Sue coat?" "Feast of Tabernacles. You do this yibber yabber with a lemon and a stalk of wheat. Ushers in the season of rejoicing."

We learn lots of new expletives like "squids" as in:
""Oh, he left rehab." "What?" Smartie said with dismay. "After only a week?" "She says he's drinking like a fish, but writing brilliantly." "Squids." Smartie sorrowfully mopped her neck..."

You get your porn and depravity (LILTART2920 whose real name is Kara Sweet,but tastefully done); your beer and belches, your fast cars, fan fiction, some classical music.

Least but not last, there's fashion "She'd traded her bloodied Mildred Pierce getup for plaid flannel pajama pants and a Make Art Not War tee shirt, along with pink socks and a pair of disposable hazmat booties Hewitt had given her."

I really loved this romp through Houston's blood puddles and I think you will too. In fact, I think I shall read it again just to get the puns and humor I missed the first time through.

So, back to the "Gunsmoke approach: everybody in their own saddle with an occasional dust devil to keep the saloon door swinging."

[Consuelo Roland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joni Rogers has enough chutzpah to turn a crime mystery tale with the requisite hard-boiled ex-cop and gutsy female protagonist into a romp with a noirish underside. I adored Smartie Breedlove and the way she really really loved her dog, and the hilarious turns of phrase that flowed so naturally, even at moments of high drama. Rodgers allows her main character to act in a `fa-woosh!' fashion without too much interference (good writing makes it seem that way!). Would the blowsy wit of phrases like "fracketty froo" and "fribbles in a snivet" have made it past the gatekeepers of traditional publishing? Probably not. Instead we get to chuckle out loud and be entertained. Some of the dialogue was so great I kept on getting the urge to share it with someone by reading it out loud.

With all the witty dialogue it's easy to forget the opening scene. But Rodgers does a weirdly smart thing; interwoven with the investigation and writing of her own pulp fiction book are frequent mentions (by Smartie) of Hebrew rites and rituals for death and mourning, and somehow it's effective. It makes Smartie a real person with a big heart, and it adds an uneasy painful layer to the frenetic action scenes. I thought the idea of Shiva - 7 days to mourn a loved one - was something Western civilization should adopt.

The obfuscation of the real story with Smartie's fiction writing works brilliantly; the two versions continually appear to coalesce and then separate again. I couldn't help wondering if Smartie wasn't going to confound everyone by returning from the dead to participate in another near-fictional adventure of her own making.

Kill Smartie Breedlove is a great holiday e-book read!

Footnote: The cover with the super-long sexy legs in black pantyhose and stilettos stands out head-and-shoulders above the crowd in terms of ultra-cool eye-catching design. I'm not so crazy about the dog with the jowls version...

[Sarah Smith]

This was a quick filler book for in between book club books. It was a free book on my Kindle that I had downloaded ages ago and not gotten around to reading before now.
Recently widowed private detective Shep Hartigate is hired by a pulp fiction writer Smartie Breedlove to find out who's killing the exes of Texas, including Smartie's best friend, Charma Bovet.
This was really good, I love the idea of an author trying to solve a mystery, while writing her next book, and elements of her real life leaking into her fantasy life, until the two are parallel.
This was an easy light read, with fun characters, and it poked fun at writers not letting them take themselves too seriously. I would read more in this series, in fact I think I should check now to see if there are more.
For additional reviews please see my blog at www.adventuresofabibliophile.blogspot...

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart, fast-paced, witty, zany characters that you can't help loving, and plot bombs up the wazoo. What's not to like? Ms. Rodgers lambasts both intellectuals and the hoi polloi with tongue planted firmly in cheek. I loved it.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd book. I almost stopped reading it after the first few chapters, but I liked it better as I continued on. It had good characters, and lots of plot twists which were not predictable.

[Joni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemed a bit "disjointed" to me--too many side stories.

[Colleen Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the fun noir elements, the smart and witty dialogue, and especially Smartie herself! I'm hoping we'll get to read more of her adventures!

[Becky Boxberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much fun! Loved Smartie Breedlove character. Her friends, lovers (ex and current), and the canine characters are each unique and interesting. Clever plot.

[Betty Ann Baer]

Print was too small on the Kindle and I didn't want to change it back and forth.