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Charlie Plato Mystery #5
Dying To See You
Successful country-western bar owner Charlotte "Charlie" Plato is not enthusiastic about attending her twenty-year high-school reunion, a party that is quickly turned upside down by the strangling death of Reina Diaz, the school's most beloved teacher and the guest of honor at the affair. Reprint.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
40 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Chittenden
30 books10 followersMargaret Chittenden has also published works under the name Meg Chittenden.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 14, 2016
©2000
22 chapters/311 pages
Book Summary—This is book number five, the last in the Charlie Plato series. And, as usual, Charlie and Zach Hunter are right in the thick of another murder. This one happens at Savanna Seabrook Bristow’s 20th high school reunion, for her alma mater, Alger Dix, a school for the underprivileged and down-and-out. CHAPS hosts the event, so, of course, this is where the murderer strikes and takes out the school’s beloved teacher, Reina Diaz. CHAPS has been dealing with financial problems and unwanted press (becoming known as the place for murders), and this new murder doesn’t help either situation but only adds a whole host of new troubles for the team to unwind, not the least of which is: Who killed Reina and why? Then comes another death to one of the alumni—was it murder or just your average drive-by? Did his declaration to Charlie that he was about to spill the beans on someone’s “skeletons” have anything to do with it? And then, when CHAPS is burned down, it becomes personal to the whole team, and Charlie and Zach are all in to find the killer, no longer just as a favor to Savanna. But was the fire connected or wiring?
Charlie and Zach have to sift through the debris of clues swirling all around them, helping Detective Sergeant Taylor Bristow find the killer. But will they piece all the clues together before the stumble on the murderer and become his next victims?
My Review—Okay, this is odd, but I’m pretty certain I’ve read this story before. My records don’t indicate that I have, but I kept getting this feeling that I’d read it. I didn’t know what was going to happen beforehand. I’d read a chapter and then, suddenly, I’d feel déjà vu, as if I’d been here before, and I’d say, “This seems so familiar.” Snatches would come back to me, such as Reina’s green jumpsuit and how she’s found in the bathroom. Then I’d be reading about the ferry ride or the scene with Francisca and Zach walking and talking and then at the lunch table, the baby against her chest and how taken Zach seemed—and I’d be certain I’d read this scene before. Then there was the trip to Mt. View to visit another class member, and I knew the scene. I knew the fire scene. Again, none of it before it happened but as it happened or just after.
(Spoiler alert!) Having said all that, I did figure out who the killer was. Again, not because I may’ve read this before but because it was just too obvious to me. I figured Forrest Kenyon was a red herring, though I didn’t like him. The man seems as if he’s a home-wrecker in the making, and Savanna, though she and Bristow were having troubles, had no business hanging on Kenyon’s every word and playing the partial-to-him ex-girlfriend over her husband.
As to the killer, well, basically, when someone remains off the suspect list and off everyone’s radar and is so sweet and helpful AND is a pastor (nondenominational, yes, but I got the feeling he was supposed to be somehow connected to Christianity and a choir at his church sings a song about Christ)—well, there’s your killer. A religious man who’s seemingly well adjusted and helpful and practicing celibacy? In a modern novel? Of COURSE, he’s the killer. If he’d been an alternative preacher, some New Agey kind of guy or maybe a homosexual preacher—no dice, positively NOT guilty. But possibly a link to Christianity? GUILTY (as sin)! And I was right.
This was a good story but a bad ending. It didn’t feel finished to me (which could be why I don’t remember having read it before, because I either blocked it out or, since it didn’t feel “finished,” I remembered this one as being not the end). Firstly, Bristow, having been stuck by a needle of an HIV-positive man in a former book, didn’t receive his test’s outcome by the end of this story, so his health’s subplot didn’t get wrapped up. All that was written was how Savanna seemed to be trying to cope regardless of the outcome, though she sounded as if she was willing to believe the outcome would be bad for Bristow.
And Charlie, having told Zach in the last story that, if he could go without sex for six months, there may be a future for them. Well, this book ends with Zach’s saying he’ll be in for a happy Christmas and looks to Charlie, and she ends the whole book saying something about a future for them? Maybe. So no wrap-up there either. You’re just left with the notion that they’ll end up together. Which, when you’ve gone five stories into their cat-and-mouse relationship (Charlie’s the cat and her games with Zach make him the mouse) Plus, Zach seems real clingy with Charlie and waxes nostalgic about wanting kids.
I don’t really have a problem with Charlie, except that, as I hinted above, she’s too…something with Zach. The guy so obviously likes her, and she’s so OBVIOUSLY jealous about any female who so much as looks his way—so why pretend? It gets old. Yes, Charlie, your ex was a skunk, but not ALL men are skunks, even a man who’s a player now doesn’t mean he’ll be a player once he makes a commitment to you. I don’t know. She never really bothered me before, but, this time around, she was getting on my nerves about Zach. Her tongue-in-cheek flippancy toward him and about his sex life, as I said, got old.
So, having gone through 311 pages of this book and the four other stories before it, I’d’ve preferred more of a closure between the two than the open-ended “Maybe” at the very end.
Oh, well.
Grade: A (good story/murder but bad finale for an end-of-the-series book)
22 chapters/311 pages
Book Summary—This is book number five, the last in the Charlie Plato series. And, as usual, Charlie and Zach Hunter are right in the thick of another murder. This one happens at Savanna Seabrook Bristow’s 20th high school reunion, for her alma mater, Alger Dix, a school for the underprivileged and down-and-out. CHAPS hosts the event, so, of course, this is where the murderer strikes and takes out the school’s beloved teacher, Reina Diaz. CHAPS has been dealing with financial problems and unwanted press (becoming known as the place for murders), and this new murder doesn’t help either situation but only adds a whole host of new troubles for the team to unwind, not the least of which is: Who killed Reina and why? Then comes another death to one of the alumni—was it murder or just your average drive-by? Did his declaration to Charlie that he was about to spill the beans on someone’s “skeletons” have anything to do with it? And then, when CHAPS is burned down, it becomes personal to the whole team, and Charlie and Zach are all in to find the killer, no longer just as a favor to Savanna. But was the fire connected or wiring?
Charlie and Zach have to sift through the debris of clues swirling all around them, helping Detective Sergeant Taylor Bristow find the killer. But will they piece all the clues together before the stumble on the murderer and become his next victims?
My Review—Okay, this is odd, but I’m pretty certain I’ve read this story before. My records don’t indicate that I have, but I kept getting this feeling that I’d read it. I didn’t know what was going to happen beforehand. I’d read a chapter and then, suddenly, I’d feel déjà vu, as if I’d been here before, and I’d say, “This seems so familiar.” Snatches would come back to me, such as Reina’s green jumpsuit and how she’s found in the bathroom. Then I’d be reading about the ferry ride or the scene with Francisca and Zach walking and talking and then at the lunch table, the baby against her chest and how taken Zach seemed—and I’d be certain I’d read this scene before. Then there was the trip to Mt. View to visit another class member, and I knew the scene. I knew the fire scene. Again, none of it before it happened but as it happened or just after.
(Spoiler alert!) Having said all that, I did figure out who the killer was. Again, not because I may’ve read this before but because it was just too obvious to me. I figured Forrest Kenyon was a red herring, though I didn’t like him. The man seems as if he’s a home-wrecker in the making, and Savanna, though she and Bristow were having troubles, had no business hanging on Kenyon’s every word and playing the partial-to-him ex-girlfriend over her husband.
As to the killer, well, basically, when someone remains off the suspect list and off everyone’s radar and is so sweet and helpful AND is a pastor (nondenominational, yes, but I got the feeling he was supposed to be somehow connected to Christianity and a choir at his church sings a song about Christ)—well, there’s your killer. A religious man who’s seemingly well adjusted and helpful and practicing celibacy? In a modern novel? Of COURSE, he’s the killer. If he’d been an alternative preacher, some New Agey kind of guy or maybe a homosexual preacher—no dice, positively NOT guilty. But possibly a link to Christianity? GUILTY (as sin)! And I was right.
This was a good story but a bad ending. It didn’t feel finished to me (which could be why I don’t remember having read it before, because I either blocked it out or, since it didn’t feel “finished,” I remembered this one as being not the end). Firstly, Bristow, having been stuck by a needle of an HIV-positive man in a former book, didn’t receive his test’s outcome by the end of this story, so his health’s subplot didn’t get wrapped up. All that was written was how Savanna seemed to be trying to cope regardless of the outcome, though she sounded as if she was willing to believe the outcome would be bad for Bristow.
And Charlie, having told Zach in the last story that, if he could go without sex for six months, there may be a future for them. Well, this book ends with Zach’s saying he’ll be in for a happy Christmas and looks to Charlie, and she ends the whole book saying something about a future for them? Maybe. So no wrap-up there either. You’re just left with the notion that they’ll end up together. Which, when you’ve gone five stories into their cat-and-mouse relationship (Charlie’s the cat and her games with Zach make him the mouse) Plus, Zach seems real clingy with Charlie and waxes nostalgic about wanting kids.
I don’t really have a problem with Charlie, except that, as I hinted above, she’s too…something with Zach. The guy so obviously likes her, and she’s so OBVIOUSLY jealous about any female who so much as looks his way—so why pretend? It gets old. Yes, Charlie, your ex was a skunk, but not ALL men are skunks, even a man who’s a player now doesn’t mean he’ll be a player once he makes a commitment to you. I don’t know. She never really bothered me before, but, this time around, she was getting on my nerves about Zach. Her tongue-in-cheek flippancy toward him and about his sex life, as I said, got old.
So, having gone through 311 pages of this book and the four other stories before it, I’d’ve preferred more of a closure between the two than the open-ended “Maybe” at the very end.
Oh, well.
Grade: A (good story/murder but bad finale for an end-of-the-series book)
November 19, 2018
I wish there were more of these.
March 2, 2013
An easy read, simplistic with stereotypical one-dimensional characters but overall fairly enjoyable. I thought it was pretty obvious who the killer was, but the confession and end of the book seemed convoluted. I would probably read something else by this author, but as a series, based on this book, I'm not inclined to go back and read the others.
February 23, 2015
A fun cozy mystery series. I enjoyed the Country Western theme of the characters and CHAPS dancing nightclub. The story was fun and I enjoyed the characters. The story held my attention and the entire storyline was not told early on which led to holding onto the mystery.
August 29, 2010
WoW, what an ending to a great series!! The books kept getting better, I wish the series had continued.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews