Death Gets A Time-Out

A Mommy-Track Mystery #4

by Ayelet Waldman

Between juggling lunchboxes, piano lessons, and baby-sitters, public defender turned stay-at-home mom Juliet Applebaum promises to help her famous friend clear her brother's name of murder. But what will she do when she begins to suspect her friend may not be as innocent as she seems?

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

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

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

[Sophie Hannah]

Despite its packaging as a 'cosy', this is a detailed and complex Private-eye detective novel, well written, sophisticated and hugely good fun. Same genre as Sue Grafton's early Kinsey Millhone books. Really enjoyed.

[Maree]

These are fun books for Moms, but I found myself not really interested and just waiting for it to be over. They definitely speak some truths about motherhood, and I can see where moms having a hard time would appreciate and be sympathetic to the situations our lawyer/detective finds herself in.

[Sarah Sammis]

The Ojai center and it's ties to a 1960s era cult bring to mind a more recent mystery I either read or watched as a police procedural. I've been wracking my brain trying to remember where I saw this plot. I can say with some certainty that Death Gets a Time-Out is the older of the plots.


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[Mir]

This is the 4th installment of a series featuring a high-powered lawyer who has left her job to stay home with her two small children. Bored, she sort of drifts into being a part-time Private Eye. In book 4, she is asked by an actress friend to investigate a rape that her secret half-brother is being charged with.

I don't know if reading the previous books would have made me like it more, but I suspect it is really just a matter of taste. I want more clever detecting and less whining about her messy house, frantic schedule, disorganization, boredom, and weight gain. Maybe stay-at-home moms would find the protagonist more sympathetic than I did, although given her frequent assurances that she has plenty of money and could have a nanny, cleaning person, or new clothes if she chose I found it hard to pity her. Also, it bothers me how many recent novels feature heroines who are too disorganized even to dress themselves properly, yet are asserted to have be brilliant lawyers, advertising execs, editors, whatever. They seem to somehow solve crimes by accident, stumbling over bodies and clues along the way. Can anyone think of a detective series featuring a male lead who is a discombobulated mess? (That isn't a rhetoric question, I'm actually curious... the closest I can think of is the Dover series, and there the sidekick solves the crimes.)

[Magda]

I am curious to see how I will like this one after reading Miriam's review...

Yeah, not so much. This should either be a mommy book or a detective book, but combining the two is somehow quite annoying and implausible.

[Sandie]

Ayelet Waldman's detective, Juliet Applebaum, harried Mom, ex-lawyer, and part-time private eye is a delightful character who juggles motherhood with appealing humor and her part-time detective gig with compassion, dedication, and intelligence. Death gets a Timeout,
number four in the Mommy Track Mysteries, is amusing, nicely plotted, and a very satisfactory read. In this book, Juliet is coping with morning sickness and trying to keep the brother of her good friend and glamorous movie star, Lily Green, off death-row. Waldman lines the alternative suspects, from a fabulously rich new-age guru to the powerful speaker of the California assembly, and knocks them down to reveal surprising killers. This is a warm and entertaining mystery that nicely combines the smarts and sartorial attitude of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone with the humor and Jewish family milieu of Susan Isaac's sleuths. I also, like Juliet, adored her kids and would have given it an extra star if Juliet's family had a dog.

[Linda]

Juliet's best friend has invited her to a gala, but Juliet forgot until the moment Lilly Green shows up at her door ready to go. Lily shares her secret that her brother has been arrested for the murder of his stepmother. Lily wants Juliet to look into it as she doesn't believe he did it. Which leads to all sorts of things that are not being explained clearly to Juliet.

[Marian]

Starts out "cozy" and ho-hum clever (snide?) but turns into a good book with a good premise.

[Kay Churgel]

3.6 rating

[Madeleine]

A fun mystery series.

[Julie]

I found myself quite annoyed at how the mystery unfolded and there was either a big giveaway in the dialogue that Juliet missed or there was a big error in the dialogue that editors missed.

[Chrishna]

I'm really enjoying these mysteries written by a former public defender who is also a mom. Delightful.

[Lisa]

3.5 stars

[Beth]

good.

[David Abrams]

Sex, drugs, blackmail—the typical stuff of hard-boiled detective novels.

Sex, drugs, blackmail, diaper rash, morning sickness, obstetrician appointments and stray Cheerios caught in the curls of your hair—these are the usual ingredients in Ayelet Waldman's series of Mommy-Track mysteries, starring criminal-defense-attorney-turned-stay-at-home-mom Juliet Applebaum. Trouble is, Juliet rarely stays at home; she's always pushing a stroller around Los Angeles, chasing no-good characters—adulterers, swindlers, murders, and so on—while juggling baby bottles and teething rings.

She's married to Peter, a successful writer of B-movies which feature zombies and flesh-eating cheerleaders, and mother to five-year-old Ruby and two-year-old Isaac. She frets over her weight, wonders if she should permanently retire her pre-baby wardrobe, whips up some fantastic cuisine featuring hot dogs and Velveeta, rushes between pre-school drop-offs and dry-cleaning pick-ups, and somehow finds time to squeeze in a little sleuthing. Okay, a lot of sleuthing.

In Death Gets a Time-Out, Waldman's fourth entry in the series, Juliet gets involved in a complicated murder case when her best friend, movie actress Lilly Green (a mega-star comparable to Julia Roberts), asks her help in defending her stepbrother. Jupiter Jones is accused of killing the second wife of his father, a charismatic New Age guru, the Very Reverend Polaris Jones. His Church of Cosmological Unity is building a religious empire in California and Polaris can't afford to taint his reputation with a murder, especially one allegedly committed by his son against his wife. Did I mention that the wife and Jupiter met when they were going through drug rehab together and that they were lovers before Jupiter introduced her to his father?

Tangled in the case is the shooting death thirty years earlier of Lilly's mother in which Lilly herself was implicated. While Juliet has a hard time believing her friend could have killed her mother when she was four years old, the Oscar-winning actress says it's burned on her memory and she's managed to keep it secret from the tabloids all these years.

Death Gets a Time-Out is arguably the best of Waldman's mysteries. It's certainly the most complex, with a dark cobweb of family dysfunction covering the whole plot. Think Chinatown, but with strollers and morning sickness. As Juliet digs up more and more evidence on suspicious deaths past and present, the list of suspects and motives grows and grows. Yet at no point does the story become so muddled we can't keep everything straight. Chalk that up to Waldman's snappy pace and the chattering, charming confessions of her Mommy gumshoe (who likely has gum—or Play-Doh—stuck to the bottom of her shoe).
I love talking to other pregnant women, or women with kids. If I ever stopped to consider that I was actively enjoying an entirely unironic conversation about the relative merits of Huggies versus Pampers, I might have bemoaned my lost intellectual life, but honestly, who has the energy for that kind of self-analysis? I'm too busy swapping intimate details about my weight, sex life, and my children's bowel movements with total strangers I meet in the playground.
Miss Marple had her knitting, Nero Wolfe had his orchids and Sam Spade had his knuckles, but Juliet Applebaum's got the sharp wit of her creator, a breezy, infectious humor that sets the Mommy-Track mysteries a cut above others in its class.

[Lisa]

Another light, fun Waldman mystery.

Here's one of my favorite quotes. Isaac is about 2 and Ruby about 5.

"Me and Ruby and Daddy."
"Ruby, Daddy, and I," his sister corrected him. My little grammarian. I once overheard her respond to a babysitter's request to take a nap, "I can lie down, but I can't lay down." I wonder why I could never get that sitter to come to our house again:

And here's another, to which you may not relate, but I sure do:

"I don't like clothes shopping with you. I like shopping with Daddy," Ruby said as I disentangled a sweatshirt with a sequined collar from her copper curls.
"What's wrong with shopping with me?" I made my voice sound nonchalant, but really my feelings were hurt. This was our special time. ...
"Because Daddy never looks at the price tags."

[Elizabeth Fuller]

Ayelet Waldman's "Mommy Track" books are one of my favorite mystery series. I enjoy her sense of humor, I completely identify with her heroine's challenges mixing young children and a demanding, non-9-to-5 career, and I love that the books are set in Los Angeles, some in my very neighborhood, with frequent references to places with which I'm quite familiar. There's nothing very deep here, but for a fun, fast read, I'm hooked. This book wasn't my favorite of the bunch (the end seemed a bit more convoluted than necessary, thus the three-star rating instead of the 4 or 4+ I'd usually give her books), but I definitely enjoyed it, and will move on quickly to the next book in the series. I just hopes she writes more soon, since I've only got two left.

[Debbie]

I wanted to try another Mommy Track mystery after reading "The Big Nap". While I enjoyed that book there was an awful lot about breast feeding and the wonderful smell of babies. I thought maybe that was limited to just The Big Nap. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Juliet Applebaum, lawyer turned Mommy is working a case but also finds out she's pregnant. She then proceeds to whine, bitch and moan about getting pregnant and "How could this happen?" and "I don't want another baby" Oy! Does this woman not have a college education? She's got 2 choices for not getting pregnant: abstinence or birth control and 2 choices after she's pregnant: abortion or adoption.

I had to trash this book as I could not take the incessant blaming and whining.

[Alissa]

This book was a straight forward whodunit, with a few minor twists at the end. The main character, Juliet, is well developed and believable as a former lawyer turned crime solver. However, I could have done without the constant references to her pregnancy and associated nausea. As for the other characters in the story, I felt the reader was given just enough information during Juliet's interactions to move the plot forward. Not a jaw dropping ending, but overall an enjoyable story. I was not drawn enough to Ayelet Waldman's writing to read another of her books.

[Sandra Strange]

Interesting "detective" is a lawyer, now stay at home mother, who narrates this mystery. Married to a Hollywood movie writer, she now acts as a private investigator, helping defend a starlet friend's step brother, accused of killing his stepmother. Besides an engaging puzzle complete with jeopardy, the mystery presents evidence on both sides of the "recovered memories" controversy. Adult themes and some language may ruin this homey mystery for sensitive readers. The family values of the protagonist help make it less objectionable.

[Kaethe]

"#4. To my amusement, the Amazon description rings no bells.

Wee! I sense a re-read coming. "

Okay, probably I won't re-read. But I'd still recommend it to others for a fun read, if said others definition of "fun read" involves loving but somewhat random mother dealing with all the ways in which she is inadequate. Frankly, I love the idea that a Harvard-educated lawyer finds motherhood just as weird as I do.

[Ala]

This is a typical easy mystery, a quick read. The "detective" juggles home life with little grace, which makes her a Mom like so many women today. Her investigative skills come in handy while trying to help a friend. Wittingly told, this is a light, fun foray into the world of a former public defender turned amateur sleuth.

[Janice]

I read these books out of order as they came into the library, but the fact that I read them all means something. I almost feel like I'm watching a weekly tv drama when I'm reading these books. I agree with the other reviewers that the mysteries aren't complex, but I don't care and just enjoy the characters.

[Helen]

Possibly the best so far in the series. Chosen for the Goodreads Cozy Mysteries November serial challenge, and I've already started the next in the series, having already read the first 3.
The theme is recovered memories, something in which I have a professional interest. An intelligent cozy mystery writer.

[Carol]

I'm not use why but I didn't like the main character, Juliet Applebaum, she was a little to scattered. But that's what being a working mom is like - been there and done that. I did like the way she thought and was able to figure out the mystery which was REALLY COMPLEX. I have always been skeptic about recovered memory therapy. Too bad we didn't see more of Juliet's husband.

[Kathleen]

I am really enjoying Waldman's series of books. I love her sense of humor. Her books remind me of the alphabet mysteries but the sense of humor makes them much more enjoyable for me. Always a fun light read in between other books I am reading.

[Barbara]

Readable and entertaining, one of a series of a young mom turned PI thrust into murder investigations. Juggling day care, play dates, & an unexpected pregnancy, Juliet Applebaum narrates in a funny way.

[Connie]

As a full time mother and also an investigator Juliet has her hands full. When she is hired by her friend she begins to think her friend might be the guilty one. A great chic mystery.

FTC disclosure: I bought my copy of this book.

[LittleDeadRedGoddessPersephone]

One of my favorite Mommy Track mysteries(Next to Murder Plays House). I like the recovered memory aspect and I really like Lilly. I love Juliette and her family. I think as a mother she is very realistic. It's funny but even set in Hollywood I find her family much more real than Lucy Stone.

[Judy]

I really like Waldman, and this series!