Clutches and Curses by Dorothy Howell

Clutches and Curses is the fourth book in the Haley Randolph mystery series. When an altercation with a customer leaves fashionista Haley Randolph with a curse instead of her dream purse, she's is transferred to the new Holt store in Las Vegas. Shortly after arriving, she finds the body of an old classmate and nemesis, Courtney Collins. Because of their rocky past and the fact that she's the one who found the body, Haley becomes the prime suspect in Courtney's death. With this curse hanging over her head, she's going to need some luck and hard work to get to the bottom of the mystery and clear her name.

I really enjoyed this cozy mystery. I'm not a fashionista, so I don't get the finding-the-perfect-handbag thing, but I liked the story and the characters nevertheless. It was a whole lot of fun to read and definitely wasn't boring. I even learned a thing or two. I might just have a inner-fashionista-diva after all.

Haley was a bit wishy-washy for me. She reminded me of Becky Bloomwood in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series. However, for some reason I didn't find Haley nearly as endearing. Having said that, I really liked her detective skills, her ambition, and her desire to do things on her own rather than accept the various extremely tempting offers from her sort-of-boyfriend, Ty. I probably would have dropped everything and went wherever he wanted to take me. If only he were real!

Highly recommended for cozy lovers. I'd definitely read another book by this author. I have the next one, Tote Bags and Toe Tags on my to-be-read shelf. I hope to get to it sooner rather than later.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit the Kensington Books website.

For more information about the author and her other books, please visit Dorothy Howell's website.

Thanks to those nice people from Kensington Books for this review copy.

Clutches and Curses by Dorothy Howell, Kensington Books, ©2011. ISBN 9780758253316(Mass Market), 343p.