Product Description

Everything has come out in the wash for artist Mandy Dyer since she inherited Dyer's Cleaners. Her divorce is behind her, her future is secure, her heart is healed. Mandy's friendship with Kate Bosworth, proprietor of an antique clothing store, dates from their halcyon days of working at street fairs and dreaming great dreams. And the dress Kate wants Mandy to clean hails from another era too, a genuine 1920's Fortuny. Kate calls the creation in blue the find of her career: a ten -dollar purchase worth thousands. Its real cost is her life.

Within days Mandy finds Kate murdered in her ransacked apartment, and the memory haunts her. Worse, so does the killer, evidently looking for the Fortuny. Now Mandy is searching flea markets and garage sales to unravel the mystery of where Kate found the dress. But the clues to Kate's death are as slippery as silk--until Mandy realizes that like Kate, the threads of past and present are weaving her destiny. And it's time to face a hard truth, a chilling betrayal...and a murderer's rage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #971823 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-08
• Released on: 1998-09-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

Ingram
Kate Bosworth, owner of Denver's favorite vintage clothing store, found the bargain of her life at the local flea market. After slapping down a $10 for a Fortunoy dress valued at over $5,000, she brought the dress to her friend and consummate professional Mandy Dyer, owner of Dyer's Cleaners. When Kate doesn't show up to claim the dress, Mandy pays a visit to Kate's shop. There she finds Kate's body, her hand still clutching the Dyer's Cleaners claim check. Could a dress be motive enough for murder?.

From the Publisher
"Delightful. Good, clean fun."
--Dorothy Cannell, author of God Save The Queen!

"Dolores Johnson writes with wit and panache. I love her sense of humor."
--Diane Mott Davidson, author of The Main Corpse

About the Author
Dolores Johnson is a journalist and a field editor for American Drycleaner magazine. She is the author of two previous Mandy Dyer mysteries: Hung Up to Die  and Taken to the Cleaners, and lives in Aurora, Colorado, where she is at work on her next novel.

Customer Reviews

A Really Fun Read
I enjoyed this book so much I will buy the rest of hers.

Enjoyable .....
This is the first book I've read by this author, and while I enjoyed it, like another reviewer, I thought the ending fizzled. I would have liked to have seen how some of the relationships that were formed in the book were settled. I will, however, read more of her books. I enjoy murder mysteries that aren't heavy and scary and full of foul language, and this one fit the bill.

Murder, Mayhem and Mandy
This is another solid effort by Dolores Johnson. It is not, by the way, a "sink your teeth into", heavy suspense kind of book. Like all the others in this series, it is a fast-paced and light mystery involving an amateur sleuth/dry cleaner owner who keeps running into murder victims one way or the other. Who knew the dry cleaning business could be so adventurous? The thing that I like about this series is that Mandy and her friends are quirky, but likeable. In fact, I like this cast of characters better than most other mystery series out there. What I do not like is there is a tendency for predictability. This particular book and Mandy's detective work just got way too predictable and the ending . . . well, I won't go into the ending, but anyway, still a worthy read if you enjoy "cozy" mysteries. Not much explicit language in this series, which I appreciate, but there are a few occurrences of it in this book.

If you have not read any books from Dolores Johnson, I highly recommend starting from the beginning of this series - "Taken to the Cleaners" is a great book.