A Playdate With Death

A Mommy-Track Mystery #3

by Ayelet Waldman

Smart, witty mystery from the author of Bad Mother and Love and Treasure...Public defender turned stay-at-home mom Juliet Applebaum is a “smart and fearless” (Sue Grafton) sleuth whose previous adventures have been praised as “compelling” (Publishers Weekly) and “entertaining” (Booklist). In A Playdate with Death, she’s back in top form—taming tantrums, battling boredom, chasing clues…No one ever said motherhood was a walk in the park, but Juliet Applebaum is doing her best. She’s been showing up (more or less) on time to pick up her daughter from preschool. She’s trying (in vain) to discourage her two-and-a-half-year-old son’s interest in firearms. And in between planning playdates and playing dress up, she’s even managed to fit in some much-needed kid-free time, working out with a personal trainer at the local health club. It’s going well. She’s losing weight. She’s even happy—until her trainer commits suicide.A charming, cheerful aspiring actor, Bobby Katz seemed to have it all—and Juliet just can’t believe he died at his own hand. She suspects that there’s a much more sinister explanation—and that it may lie with Bobby’s parents, who never told him he was adopted. Or with his grieving fiancee, a recovering addict who just fell off the wagon. Or with his birth mother, a woman he had recently started to look for—who had gone to great lengths to ensure that she would never be found. Always up for a task that will get her out of the house, Juliet keeps running down secrets—until, at last, she runs into the truth…Ayelet Waldman is the author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Red Hook Road, Daughter's Keeper, and other acclaimed works, as well as the Mommy-Track Mysteries, including such titles as The Big Nap and Death Gets a Time-Out.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Mystery Thriller, Humor, Jewish

236 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Ayelet Waldman is the author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road and The New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was made into a film starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her radio commentaries have appeared on "All Things Considered" and "The California Report."

You can follow Ayelet on Facebook and Twitter.

Love and Treasure is available for purchase here.

Reviews

[Amy H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had this book sitting on my book shelf forever, and decided to give it a try.

This wasn't a bad story, but their was a couple things I didn't like about it either.

This story is about a stay-at-home mom named Juliet. She used to be a lawyer, but had a couple kids and decided she wanted to spend time with her kids then putting lots of hours in at the office. Well here comes my beef number 1. Why, if you are a stay at home mom would you ALWAYS pawn your children off with their working father so you can run around all day every day. Like going to the gym, hanging out with your friends, solving murders. then you claim you hate being home with your children. well, if that isn't a dead giveaway that you need to back to work I honestly don't know what is! then you boo hoo that you need to get out and work so you are dead set on solving mysteries... HMMM

next while at the gym working with her trainer she finds out that he was dead. They found him with a gun shot wound to his head. She thinks it is murder because he was a happy guy and wasn't sad. Her trainer was a recovering drug addict, but she knew that drugs were not part of the issue.

The more Juliet dug she found out that his girlfriend starting doing drugs again, and that he just found out that he was adopted. He was trying to find his birth mother and was going thru different websites. Juliet decided she was going to take over where he left off because she thinks that finding out will help solve this case.

meanwhile her police friend decided to start his own private eye business because it makes more money. He offered her a job, but she will never give him a straight answer except that she wants to stay home with her kids... HELLO... YOU ARE NEVER HOME!!! so she starts taking her 3 year old son with her while she questions different people.

The more she finds out the more her life starts to get into danger. Their is a loop hole to this mystery. Her trainers family is wealthy and is trying to take everything from his live in girlfriend. This website to help find birth parents, the creator is having an affair with the trainer. This birth mother is wealthy and hiding a secret about this trainer, and the father of this trainer is also a bigger mystery.

this has lots of humor, and it is a great cozy mystery...

[L Y N N · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can relate to Juliet's child-rearing challenges in so many ways! Though I admit I was not as restless and bored as a stay-at-home full-time mother as she is... I think perhaps I was still a kid-at-heart so I wasn't bored! :) Plus I cooked, gardened, and canned and froze all the fruits and vegetables I could. We were poor and I wanted to feed my family well even if we didn't have much money for food.

I kinda wonder what Ayelet's relationship with any siblings might be. ;) In both this and the second installment, siblings are not exactly best friends... :) For all his faults, I really like Al. Though I did feel some sympathy and empathy for him as he experiences some of the challenges of aging.

Another excellent mystery, IMO, and I love these characters/this family!

[John Frankham · Rating 2 out of 5]

A run-of-the-mill murder mystery in the USA. The protagonist is a female lawyer, now at home with two young children but drawn into investigating the death of her gym trainer. She's so politically correct, it hurts. Not clear whether the author is proselytising or has tongue in cheek. Anyway, the plot is so bogged down with the intricacies of genetics and inheritance that I could not quite say I enjoyed it. But I would read another if it came my way ... maybe.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not really sure why I read another in this series. I remember not liking the first one I read. The mysteries are good however I detest Juliet. She's a whiner and seems to hate mommy duties as well as working full-time.

[Kelly Pollard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun diversion and easy read.

[Gen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished it but the protagonist was a self inserted mary sue who never stopped whining about being anti-gun, a feminist, or how racist people are towards people who are jewish quivalents to Sunday Christians while having the book's setting in south Cali.

The mechanics of the writing are bland and easy read. Very little separates the voices vetwe dialog too.

The book gets 2 stars because it didn't have me throwing it out the window but I won't read more nor recommend the book to anyone else. Even if my politics aligned with the protagonist, the story is so bland and the lead character is annoying.

[Desiree Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a cozy mystery, I found it a light and easy read. The layout was smooth and the couple of twists and turns were interesting.

However, I did get bored with the lack of Juliet Applebaum’s ....personality? I found her to be a bit dull. She was very focused on this case and part of me wished that she had slightly more personality, outside of just being a mother.

Overall though, I did enjoy the book.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you want to be a stay at home mom but have trouble keeping things together. Juliet is using the gym membership her husband gave when she finds her personal trainer has died. She tries to figure out why he killed himself or did someone else do him in. Of course going to the gym anymore is out of the question.

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice fun light reading mystery book.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juliet is one of the funniest protagonists in cozy mysteries. That wouldn't be saying all that much, but I do enjoy my visits to her snarky, judgmental, smart POV. This one was also profoundly sad.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another light, fun read. I enjoy how honest Waldman is about how parenting young children can be so challenging.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third in this series. Once again, it is billed as funny and cozy-like, but the ending was very sad. Her children are growing up very quickly and I don't think an average 2 year old would have the vocabulary that her son has but that is a quibble of mine with this series. I'm sure I will read the next one but will take a break from this series.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book being nineteen years old, I was also glad I hadn't read it when it was newly published. Bobby was written to be only six months older than I am. Ian and I both had the genetic testing that led to all of Bobby's troubles and for the real reason he ended up a carrier. Juliet's youngest child is two years older than my oldest. 2002 was a stressful and emotional time for me and I think this book would have absolutely devastated me.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm...

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

good

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The one with the personal trainer."

Once again, I'm amazed that at one time I thought that little sentence was enough. Not that I'd reread these for the plots. Actually, as strongly as I would recommend these to mystery-loving parents, I don't think I'm likely to go back to them. Now, Daughter's Keeper, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, those I'd all go back and read for the rich pleasure of it.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, this book had an amusing cover that caught my eye in the new book section at the library, so I grabbed it. It's really what I'd call a fluff mystery, but unlike the other book I didn't like, I loved this one. Yes the main character is dealing with death (possible murder), but she is still great fun while she tries to solve the mystery while still dealing with her little kid and husband who try her patience. I figured out that there is just one in of the books in a series that deal with the same main character who quits her job in the DA's office to be a stay-at-home mommy. Of course she manages to get involved in shady situations regardless. I'm going to read more of these as soon as I get a chance - no thinking required!

[Ann]

In the third book of the Mommy-Track series, former defense attorney and stay-at-home mom Juliet Applebaum arrives at her L.a. gym to find that her personal trainer and friend has been found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gun-shot wound. Juliet has her doubts that upbeat Bobby would have committed suicide, and when his fiancé also expresses doubts, Julist launches her own personal investigation into his death.

These books are both entertaining and interesting. Juliet Applebaum is such a fun, relatable character, and there always seems to be an interesting facet to the mystery: in this case adoption plays a key role.

I definitely enjoy these and will read more of them in the future.

[Vilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Ayelet Waldman books. P.D. James said she purposefully removed family from her detective series, but Ayelet Waldman anchors her mysteries with a complicated, messy family life. The main character is constantly juggling her interests and complicated feelings for family and for the life she left as a public defender, and a modern marriage where partners are constantly negotiating their relationship and responsibilities while trying to connect. (Waldman is novelist Michael Chabon's wife and mother of 4, so she has the experience to pull it off.) Waldman is also realistic about modern crime and unhappiness but finds a lot of good in the world too.

[Laurie]

This is a pleasant way to pass the time while the children are napping, if you're not the type to rush around the house mopping and straightening up. The action is quick, and there's a lot of wry humor as a stay-at-home mom investigates the death of her personal trainer. The themes of adoption, drug addiction, and racism are all covered breezily and without slighting their complexity. The heroine, who like Waldman is a former public defender married to a successful writer, has engaging children and a pleasant husband. If at times she's a little overbearing, better that than a shrinking violet!

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a few of this series and they were unusual, well-focused and just right for someone with kids, who can't concentrate on too many plot twists and levels of detail for long.
The amateur sleuth has been a public defender but now she's a stay-home mother who is looking for preschools, attending play-dates and funerals and all kinds of things that women do instead of being at work. She still can't help investigating crimes. The kids are pretty good kids I have to say, and the good mother comes to the fore and puts their needs first.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy this VERY short series. Since I moved to a new library system, I am able to get all of Waldman's "Mommy Track Mysteries." The books are small so they really are like short stories. The main character offers her opinion freely about subjects from gun control to parenting. Usually she is dealing with a family issue alongside a murder case. In this book, she was trying to deal with her son's obsession with guns. Quick and readable, great escape.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same as the rest of the series. Fun little mystery. The two things that continually bug me is that she is so cranky about being a stay at home mom (then DON'T be) and also how she leaves her kids with her husband constantly to "get a break." There is nothing on between the breaks, practically. Anyway, both of these things are such side notes to the story that they don't bother me that much, they are just annoying on the side. I like the series in general.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written mystery that had enough twists and turns in it to keep me guessing. The characters are likable, the mysteries are believable. There are a few laughs here and there, but this series is grittier than most and its heroine, Juliet Applebaum is spunkier than most former lawyer turned stay-at-home mom. Each book I have read in this series has been better than the ones before it. Highly recommended.
3.75

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really fun series to read--a recovering attorney who quits her job to stay home with her young children finds herself bored and restless at home playing Legos, yet isn't prepared to return to her demanding job. She ends up smack in the middle of a number of murders (in this one, it's her personal trainer) and toys with the idea of becoming a bona fide private investigator.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it the same way I did "the big nap"- fluffy, funny, with a highly relatable heroine (CA SAHM of two little children). Must say, though, that I wouldn't enjoy these mysteries if I didn't have kids, and she really does write for such a niche audience(uber-educated liberal stay at home mothers?) that I'm surprised the series lasted/sold for 6(?) books.

[Shana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Third installment of Ayelet Waldman's Mommy Track series. This book was a more solid venture than the first two. The story was tight, reminding me of a Sue Grafton story. This one set up Juliet in a partnership with Al, so leaves us with a set up for the next book.

[Amber La Mons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I picked up this series in the middle I really enjoyed it. Being a mommy was definitely appealing and I can't believe some of the things that she did. I enjoyed this author and plan on reading the entire series.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 3rd book in the Mommy-Track Mystery series. It was a quick read-I read it on the plane. I still like the premise of the public defender turned stay-at-home mom, but this one was kind of blah. I already got the next book though, so I hope she adds some twist to it.

[April Lashbrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, fluffy mystery starring an ex-public defender turned stay at home mom. I liked Juliet Applebaum, except for the weight disparagement. She was definitely a believable ex-lawyer. Liked the AA, Jewish, and gun control tie-ins.