Not a Girl Detective

Cece Caruso Mystery #2

by Susan Kandel

"I spent my entire youth idolizing Nancy Drew. I'm pushing forty now, but some fantasies die hard."

Besides her beloved collection of vintage designer clothing, there is nothing Cece Caruso cherishes more than her childhood memories of Nancy Drew. Her near obsession with the fictional teenage sleuth led her to become a professional biographer of classic mystery writers. And now that she's working on a book about Nancy's pseudonymous creator, "Carolyn Keene, " Cece's in heaven.

At the L. A. home of another rabid Drew-ophile, Cece finds a treasure trove of useful memorabilia, including one unique and somewhat shocking collectible. Later she finds a dead body -- and a puzzle that would sorely test the skills of her spunky girlhood heroine. Now she'll have to channel her former idol and unmask a murderer, and the killer may be coming for Cece next.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Chick Lit, Mystery Thriller, Detective

324 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 24, 2005

About the author

Susan Kandel is the author of the critically acclaimed, L.A. Times-bestselling Cece Caruso mysteries, the most recent of which, DIAL H FOR HITCHCOCK (Harper, 2009) was named one of the five best mysteries of the year by NPR. Her upcoming book, DREAM A LITTLE DEATH, is the first in the Dreama Black series, and will be published by William Morrow's Witness Impulse in 2017.

Susan lives in West Hollywood, CA with her husband, Peter Lunenfeld, and her equally handsome dog, Cooper.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rating Clarification: 1.5 Stars

This wasn't what I was hoping for. I was expecting more Nancy Drew trivia and less vintage clothing, diet cokes and slutty side kicks. It doesn't bode well when you dislike the main heroine, her friends, her love interest, the mystery, the writing style and (at least for me) the confusion of the plot in general.

I'm bumping my 1 star up to 1.5 because I did enjoy those few and far between references to Nancy Drew/Carolyn Keene and the publishing syndicate that created both the teenage sleuth and her various ghostwriters. Otherwise, I'll be leaving this murder mystery series behind with only this one under my belt.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really the ONLY redeeming thing about this book was the series of references to the Nancy Drew books. I would love to see a better series of these that focus on various girls' series....Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, Betsy Ray!

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the premise of this book- an author writing a biography of the pen name Carolyn Keene, but it wasn't well written at all- the details frankly were confusing and didn't make a lot of sense. Also, it was distracting that the main character was supposedly from Asbury Park, NJ- there hasn't been a white person living in Asbury for about 50 years, so as a NJ resident, I can say that didn't lend much credibility to this author. I kept thinking "How would this Italian girl have survived if she had supposedly went to Asbury park HS? Why isn't her mom dead if she supposedly lives there?". For example, I was driving through AP with my friend when all of a sudden, a drive by shooting hit two cars in front of us...right with hundreds of witnesses. Another time when I was 21, I was there with a friend of mine and we stopped at a red light and a cop pulled up to us and told us not to stop for red lights in Asbury." Not exactly a quaint little town as the author portrays. Authors should research the towns they write about instead of picking a name off the map.

[LilBib’Phile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as enjoyable as "I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason" but still very good. If you liked Nancy Drew, you will like this book.
There was also a lot of interesting factual detail, and, as always, I loved the Southern California settings.

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful entry in the CeCe Caruso series. I love reading about her wonderful vintage clothes, some little tidbits of information about people, places, things and mystery facts she is working on, all told in her dry sense of humor.

Not a rip-roaring mystery but it flows along at a leisurely pace and has many side story lines along with CeCe's every day life. Perfect combination as far as I'm concerned.

The only thing that held me back from reading this quickly was that I had to keep checking google images to see what/who fashions she was wearing, what the real life Grace Horton looked like and different covers from other vintage mystery series. What fun!

[Liz V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cece is doing research for her latest biography, on Carolyn Keene--the pseudonym for the authors of the Nancy Drew series. In the course of her research, Cece meets an avid collector of Nancy Drew books and ephemera, and the collector invites Cece to use his Palm Springs house while Cece is attending a Nancy Drew conference. Alas, the collector turns up at the house, dead. There are more than enough suspects, but Cece doesn't believe the police have zeroed in on the right one and sets out to find the killer before he finds her.

Much of the plot revolves around Russell H. Tandy, the illustrator of the dust jackets, and his friend Salvador Dalis. More about the various authors would have been nice.

[Susie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that these books delve into an element of the history of mystery — in this case, Nancy Drew (my childhood fave!). There was less fashion talk in this one so I didn’t feel as clueless. Really enjoyed the plot and the background on the various folks who wrote under the Carolyn Keene pseudonym.

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love all the vintage details and of course, Nancy Drew & the other sleuths mentioned - these details enhance the book greatly!

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't call this a realistic, or even a very compelling, mystery, but an entertaining read nonetheless. Cece Caruso is a narrator who is probably too impulsive to survive as an amateur sleuth in real life, but likeable enough as a character. Through her narration, I learned plenty of history about the Nancy Drew series, but also got to enjoy numerous digressions on the subject of vintage fashion and other topics only tangentially related to the plot. I would definitely read another Susan Kandel book if given the chance.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in this series and the third that I have read. Unlike the other two, I knew nothing about the topic that Cece is writing about: I never read or watched any Nancy Drew mysteries. Because of that it's harder for me to guess where historical fact ends and the author's imagination and poetic license begin.

Like the other books that I have read, the protagonist is writing a biography of a fiction icon, in this case the fictional authoress Carolyn Keene. Despite my handicap of knowing nothing about Nancy Drew, I enjoyed this volume as much as the ones about Erle Stanley Gardner and Alfred Hitchcock.

In this volume we get a little more into some of Cece's current personal life as well as a little reprise of the character introductions found in the first book. Granted they are included to help new readers into the series, but I found it more noticeable than in the first book. Before it flowed more naturally into the narrative, here I found it a bit more heavy-handed (probably because I had read the same material only a few days ago).

This book follows the usual pattern of immersing the heroine and reader in a confusing problem early on and then taking virtually all of the rest of the book to resolve it. Along the way there are interesting side plots and obstacles that keep the action flowing and Cece running around.

I keep saying that these are lighter fiction and that's true, but they are so action-oriented that they seem weightier than a 40ish author and classic fashionista might be. Each of these books is more than the sum of its parts, but don't just take my word for it, go out and read them for yourself.

[Jenny Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this book only because I felt some sort of investment after 70 pages.

Sure, parts of it were interesting. I think that I learned something about the creation of the Nancy Drew character and image. However, the plot itself had so many holes that you couldn’t walk two steps without plunging to your death.

The characters were not likable (nor were they really hated), and they made the most ridiculous decisions. For example, how the heroine is saved in the end by her friends makes no sense. People just don’t act that way. I also never cared about the mystery. It seemed a trivial storyline, and for a murder mystery, it should be up front and center.

A few other minor details bothered me. Events passed without mention—Cece would be in one place doing one thing and then suddenly the book would skip ahead without any mention to how she got where she was or what else had transpired. Cece also seemed to leave her pets at the drop of a hat. She has a dog, and she would leave for days at a time. Who was taking care of her dog? It seemed like the story was written by someone who didn’t fully understand the world she had created.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for a frothy read as I trolled the library shelves--and, what could be lighter than a contemporary mystery involving a group of Nancy Drew fans?

This is my second novel by Kandel---and she must somehow channel my quirky interests. Her first novel---I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason--appealed to me as the proud owner of 110 black and white episodes of 1950's-60's Perry Mason episodes. And the Nancy Drew theme has similar appeal.

It was a bonus that some of the book's action takes place in Palm Springs and that our heroine is a campy vintage clothing fanatic. So, as I sat in Palm Springs in my Lilly Pulitzer capris, I was hard pressed not to enjoy this gal-pal mystery. Perfect for a quiet afternoon. Maybe I should have given it another star.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given this book to read by a friend who bought it for a quarter. It is a cute detective story, definitely not hard-boiled, about a woman who is a die-hard Nancy Drew fan. As you can imagine, it is light-hearted and whimsical even at its' most serious. At the climax, Cece does the villain in by throwing the Elements of Style at him. This book was definitely out of my comfort zone with descriptions of vintage fashions and sling back pumps. A little discomfort is a good thing.

[laninaki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a sad disappointment. The premise is great, and could have been truly interesting, but it just doesn't work. I read the first 100 pages hoping things would get better, but the writing was so poor, the details confusing, the characters just sort of blah, and the humor so different from mine, that I gave up and just read the last chapter to see who the murderer was.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looked for this book at the library because I heard that it had a Nancy Drew/Caroline Keene connection. Several other vintage girls' series were mentioned, too. That was the part that I enjoyed reading.

The main character, Cece Caruso, drives a blue car in this book while hers is in the shop, has quirky friends, she came from New Jersey (Asbury Park), had an early marriage that didn't last and now has an Italian cop boyfriend (Gambino) so I might have compared her to Stephanie Plumb in Janet Evanovich's series who often borrows Big Blue, a '53 powder blue Buick, has quirky friends, comes from New Jersey (Trenton), had an early marriage that didn't last, and now has an Italian cop boyfriend (Morelli) if this book had been better.

In the Stephanie Plumb books, it is already a stretch for readers to believe that she is still so immature in her 30's. Cece Caruso is 40. I think I sprained something.

When she is on the job, Stephanie generally wears practical clothes like jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. Cece Caruso is supposedly running and jumping in circular skirts, off-the-shoulder blouses, and kitten heels. Made me laugh to think what she looked like.

Stephanie has a pet hamster. A practical pet for a girl on the go. Cece Caruso has both a dog and a cat. She feeds them occasionally but seems to be away from home for long periods of time. Does she have a litter box? If she has a doggie door it's not mentioned. I imagine that her house has piles of doodoo all over the place and cat urine -- well, let's not go there.

[IAmTheHolly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cece is obsessed with Nancy Drew, and something of an expert on the ghostwriters of Carolyn Keene, the series author’s pen name. She meets a guy who collects memorabilia, and has a whole collection and a unique painting of one of the most mysterious of the authors. There’s a girl’s trip to a convention, then people start turning up dead.

Sounds like it’d be okay if cozy mysteries are your thing, right? It was disjointed, the first murder happened on page 100, and I was ready to be done reading it long before then.

I really just don’t have much to say about this book – I didn’t like the main character, her boyfriend, or her friends. There seemed to be almost three different styles throughout the book – the first part, gallivanting with friends, the middle, with the Nancy Drew stuff, then the end, with her boyfriend appearing. I just really didn’t like it. I’ll go 3 of 10 overall, and only that because it was such a quick read, and 4 of 5 for readability.

See bedroopedbookworms.wordpress,com for more reviews!

[Nicole Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful read about the murder of a man with a Nancy Drew cover model's naked painting in his possession.

http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2018...

Nancy [Drew] was everything I wasn’t. Brave. Forthright. Not Italian. Best of all, she didn’t have a mother. Her life was a Freudian fantasy come true. Just a girl, her father, and a housekeeper.
-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 28)

If you have to lie, lie to people who are rushing. They will not pursue it. They may not even be listening to you.
-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 131)

It was hard to imagine that two thousand years ago, Palm Springs’s first residents, the ancestors of today’s Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, had enjoyed a rich ceremonial life in the absence of thirty-four places to purchase a smoothie.
-Susan Kandel (Not a Girl Detective p 241)

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate starting with the second book in a series but someone must have given me this or I bought it thinking I would find the first. Cece Caruso is fascinated with Nancy Drew and is writing a book about Carolyn Keene who apparently did not exist. In the process of doing her research, she meets Edgar Edwards who is wealthy and owns quite a collection of Nancy Drew books, all different editions. He ends up getting himself murdered and that's where the sleuthing comes in. Cece is witty, gutsy , and very quirky and she has 2 girlfriends who seem very closely related to Beth and George in the Nancy Drew stories. I will now go back and read the first book in this series and hopefully, it's just as fun as this one was.

[Margaret]

I liked the Nancy Drew tie-in and the concept in general. The main character was hard to get to know and didn't really seem to have a life outside of being an amateur detective and so-called fashion diva. The plot lacked cohesion and was hard to follow in the middle. I felt like she was pulling "clues" out of the air. I also found thought that the other characters were not clearly defined enough and added to my confusion on who was who. This series has potential but needs a little more work.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just loved it! I am a big Nancy Dtew fan and was drawn to this book about Cece Caruso,who is writing a book about the people that wrote the series under the Carolyn Keene name
She finds an interesting back story about the woman who posed for the Nanc6 Drew covers. Murder,intrigue and her two best girl chums

[Alissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not get into this author's writing style as much as I hoped to. I kept trying but continued to feel like I was listening to someone who has an attention span disorder. Her trivia about the whole Nancy Drew enterprise was great! I learned a lot about my favorite girl detective, but to get to the end of the actual mystery in the book, I was too worn out to continue the chase till the end.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cece has an obsession with Nancy Drew and becomes a biographer of classic mystery writers. Since she is writing a book about Nancy's creator "Carolyn Keene" she is in heaven. When visiting a home of someone else who loves Nancy Drew and finds a treasure trove of memorabilia. Cece later finds a body and tries to figure out the puzzle using her Nancy Drew skills.

[Kshydog · Rating 2 out of 5]

The mystery aspect seemed to get lost in the details. A lot of info about the Nancy Drew series and would have liked author’s notes verifying how much was truth especially about the artists involved. No funny characters like in Stephanie Plum series. There was potential but it felt flat.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

How could I resist a mystery with Nancy Drew at the heart of it? She was one of my favorites when I was a girl.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this way more than I did. The writing style was very abrupt and the dialogue wasn't natural. The mystery was okay but meh.

[Kathleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well written for a cozy mystery. Interesting facts and history about Nancy Drew woven throughout the story- and what cozy mystery reader didn’t start with Nancy Drew?

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of fun - like Nancy Drew but with LGBT characters and 4th-wave feminism (is that what we're calling it? Doesn't seem to be 3rd-wave anymore).

[Ruth Woodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved Nancy Drew as a kid, so this was an interesting read.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable book, especially if you have fond memories of Nancy Drew books.

[Ginger Perry]

Cute book with interesting facts about Nancy Drew books.