SWAMPED

by Sandy Gingras

Nobody goes to Florida in June. Except Lola Polenta. But, when you’re running away from your awful marriage, your boring teaching career and your life in New Jersey, you have to run to somewhere, right?

Except what happens when, if on the first night in your new home, you’re walking your dog and you trip and fall on top of a dead guy? What happens when the detective investigating the death (who also happens to be incredibly cute) thinks you killed the guy?

What happens is you better figure out who DID kill him.

But that’s not easy when you’re only on lesson two of the Online Private Detective Training Institute.

Sandy Gingras is the winner of the 2012 Debut Dagger Award presented by the Crime Writers Association (CWA) and is the author and illustrator of twenty-four books. She lives on an island in New Jersey with her husband, son, and golden retriever, Quincy.

Genres: Mystery

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 11, 2014

Reviews

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Sandy Gingras's Swamped, the first installment in the Lola Polenta cozy mystery series, this debut would keep you hooked on every page. Lola left her husband and teaching career in New Jersey and headed for the hills to live in Florida to start a new life. She started talking PI lessons over the Internet and lives in a trailer park community near the Everglades. But when one of her neighbors wounded up clobbered in the head with a golf club, it was up to Lola to talk to her neighbors. She learned that her former neighbor blackmailed them and vowed to keep their secrets. Each one of them had a motive to kill him, except for Joe, who becomes Lola's newest friends. She also had a crush on Detective Johansen who was on the case, a single father with a teenage daughter, as they had butted heads from time to time. The closer Lola gets into the truth, the more she becomes swamped with more suspicions on her neighbors, when one of them would stop her from finding out for good.

[Kay (Brigidsmomma) Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! After trying to read a couple of duds that I couldn't even finish, this one set me back on the course of finding books that I enjoy. A little off-kilter humor-wise, but in a good way. I liked the twists and turns and the possibilities that this book brings. Looks like it could be the first of a new series, but would also make a great stand-alone...

[Barbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I impulsively bought this book when in How to Live. To me, the best way to describe it is, Stephanie Plum Light. Not my favorite read. I thought the main character, Lola Polenta, reminded me of Stephanie, divorced, a bit lost, finding criminals, always getting into trouble, but didn't have the substance of an Evanovich book. I found the characters confusing to follow and vastly strange. It's an okay summer read with some humor, but disappointing to me.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lola's marriage and her life are falling apart. Even though she has never had that good a relationship with her father, when her marriage collapses she decides to head down to Florida and become a private investigator like dad. She is given a place to live, a ramshackle trailer house that is hanging at a slant on the edge of the swamp, hence the title. Lola is blundering through the process of getting her license so she can become a legitimate PI and not get her father's firm into trouble. She doesn't want to study, the book is too intimidating. She also doesn't want to get furniture for her trailer because it might be too much of a commitment.

That seems to be her life. If it's too hard, either let someone else do it, or charge in without thinking. Thankfully she has a lot of elderly neighbors willing to think and act for her. Her reasoning and speech confuse most of the people around, especially the detective she succeeded in aggravating most of the time. The characters are all interesting, the mystery seems to propagate itself into a number of others, all intertwined.

It took me a while to get into this story. I did chuckle at several points, but never felt like laughing out loud. I found Lola aggravating, at least at first. She did grow on me, but mostly because of how the story itself began to come together.

The book is written in first person present tense, a style I've never cared for. I wasn't that enamored with Lola at first either, but as she blundered through trying to solve this case, I found the mystery getting more and more interesting. As the characters sorted themselves out in my mind, I started to enjoy it. If you are like me and turned off by the writing style, hang in there and give it a chance, if only to watch her drive the detective nuts!

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sandy Gingras's first mystery novel is a subtle adventure of Lola, fresh out of her marriage with only one lesson of an online private investigator under her belt, who stumbles over a dead body on her first night in Florida. Ernie, the control-freak groundskeeper at a trailer park for the elderly, wasn't thought of highly by the denizens he pushed around with his riding mower, and Lola is trying to sort out her new start on life, so a mystery might be just the thing she needs. Add on a chummy sidekick, Joe, her dog Dreamer and other quirky character both friend and foe, and you have a soupy mixture that is funny and disturbing at the same time. But remember, folks, we're in Florida here. Gingras is an astoundingly strong writer who gives you humor and sentiment that is never over the top nor buffoonish and a great read overall.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zany, quirky, fun, entertaining - this book is all of these things.

We follow Lola into the swamp in Florida where she hopes to get her life back together. Instead she finds herself thrown into a murder mystery.
Will she be able to pass her PI test and join her fathers company as a detective?
What will happen to her love life? Can she solve all the mysteries around her with the aid of her new friends?

All will be revealed by the end of the story. A delightfully different murder mystery with an unlikely heroine supported by an even more unlikely mix of characters. This has got to be a winner.

I absolutely loved it and look forward to the next in this series. Will the cute detective and Lola be an item by then? Who knows ........

[Kimber]

Boring

I really tried to like this but Lola the LC was a sad sack with no direction or personality, no umph. So boring I found myself racing to 'get it over with' just so I could be done and get to a better book. Even her dog wasn't interesting or gave her any depth. She told the dog to eat & it did, let's walk & it did, get in the car & it did ad nauseam.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lola Polenta decides to leave her husband and travel to Florida to meet up with her father, an ex-cop, now P.I. because she decides that is what she wants to do now. Her first night she discovers a body at the trailer park she is staying.

[Sheri Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

This was such a funny story. Love the way it flows and I seriously laughed out loud a lot. What a great change of pace.

[Linda Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

Really enjoyed this book. I liked Lola and all her friends at the trailer park. The mystery was intriguing and hard to solve

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK read but the writing was a bit dull.

[Lynn Horton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Swamped

Could not get into this. Found it boring. Would not recommend, but then again, it might just be me. End.