Roberts, Gillian Books

You Can Write a Mystery

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Have you ever thought about writing a mystery, and gave up the idea because you weren't sure how to start it? Well now is your chance to go out and write that mystery you have always dreamed of. You Can Write A Mystery, written by Gillian Roberts, author of the Anthony Award-winning Amanda Pepper Series, will help you start your mystery and guide you through to the end.

"The 'rules' that govern the mystery are the rules that govern all fiction. Every novel needs suspense and drama," says Roberts. With this book you'll learn how to build your story from the grave up. Roberts focuses on what she calls the "SEVEN C'S", why you need them and how they help your story. She offers examples and exercises that will help you complete your story filled with cliffhangers, intriguing characters and hooks. This book also offers practical suggestions for handling problems likely to arise during the writing process. Along the way, Robert's will teach you:

- The 15 commandments for mystery
- How to design your sleuth
- The Seven Cs your book can't do without - characters, conflict, causality, complications, change, crisis and closure
- How to hide clue, and exploit red-herrings
- Research techniques
- How to develop a style, find a tone and construct a killer plot

You Can Write A Mystery, offers practical guidance for the first-time writer. Its easy-to-understand format will help the most amateur to become a mystery writer. In addition to the practical writing advice supplied, Roberts also offers expert advice for editing, revising and submitting a top-notch manuscript.

All's Well That Ends: An Amanda Pepper Mystery

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Barring the usual teenage pranks, all seems peaceful at Philly Prep, the private school in Philadelphia where Amanda Pepper teaches English. No doubt the money that appears to be missing from funds collected to aid victims of a catastrophic hurricane Down South will turn up. Probably the rumor that some of Amanda’s students have discovered the thrills of gambling is totally unfounded.

In any case, Amanda has other things to think about. Her husband, private investigator C. K. MacKenzie, is struggling to help his Louisiana kinfolk reconstruct their post-hurricane lives. Her friend Sasha’s stepmother has just committed suicide–although, according to Sasha, Phoebe Ennis would never have killed herself, especially not while having a drink and wearing a red silk blouse and red sandals with four-inch heels.

Amanda isn’t persuaded but reluctantly agrees to help investigate the woman’s demise, though the evidence for foul play is slim. True, the middle-aged compulsive collector of knickknacks wasn’t universally loved. Phoebe’s own son hated her and she bored her friends to death with hints of her “royal” lineage. And with four marriages behind her, she was already preparing to announce her renewed availability on the Net. But when another woman is found dead in Phoebe’s house, it becomes clear that something is indeed murderously amiss, and much closer to home than Amanda or anyone else could have imagined.

All’s Well That Ends is the final novel in Gillian Roberts’s acclaimed Amanda Pepper series. It’s also the best, irresistibly intelligent, and richly entertaining. Amanda’s farewell adventure brings the genius of “the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers” (Nancy Pickard) into full flower, and the bloom is sweet and a wonder to behold.


From the Hardcover edition.

Till the End of Tom: An Amanda Pepper Mystery (Amanda Pepper Mysteries)

Gillian Roberts

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Traditionally, Old Philadelphians keep a low profile. They associate with one another and leave life as discreetly as they have lived it. So Philly Prep English teacher Amanda Pepper, who thinks her only current problems are keeping her well-meaning family from hijacking her wedding, is understandably stunned to discover a perfect specimen of the species dying at the foot of the school’s marble staircase.

It is anybody’s guess what led to Tomas Severin’s apparent fall and, indeed, why he was in the building in the first place. More questions arise when Amanda enters her otherwise empty classroom and finds a take-out cup of herbal tea laced with the party drug her students call roofies. Why would a middle-aged Philadelphian have a date-rape drug in his tea? Why does he have Amanda’s name scribbled in his pocket notebook?

Hired by a member of the Severin family household, Amanda and her fiancé, C. K. Mackenzie, realize that many people felt their lives would improve if Tom’s life ended–making it seemingly impossible to determine who’d been harassing Severin with threatening phone calls. Tom Severin leaves behind angry ex-wives, one recently dropped fiancée, and the current (about to be exed) Mrs. Tomas Severin. As secrets are unearthed, and cruelties old and new revealed, it’s apparent that The End of Tom is just the beginning of the grief he caused.

To thousands of adoring Amanda Pepper fans, Gillian Roberts’s new mystery offers unmitigated delight. A note to the uninitiated: There could be no better time for you to meet “the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers . . . giving more wit per page than most writers give per book” (Nancy Pickard).


From the Hardcover edition.

Caught Dead in Philadelphia

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An excellent first mystery 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is the third book I've read by Gillian Roberts but the first in the series -- I'm doing it backwards. This was still an excellent book, but not as polished as the two later books I've read. Still, Philadelphia "detective" heroine English teacher Amanda Pepper is just as likeable and funny from the start (although I think the books get funnier), and the romantic chemistry with Louisiana-born CK (in later books boyfriend and meets her as homicide detective in tihs book) is there from the start.

Amanda's involvement with murder mysteries begin when a rain-soaked part-time teacher at her school shows up first thing in the morning on the doorstep of her charming little colonial home. The ditzy visitor (she's an actress) is not making much sense, but Amanda has to get to work and leaves the jabbering woman (unwillingly) in her home where the soon-to-be victim says she's going to take a nap. In no time at all, as the reader discovers in the first few pages, she has been killed. The police at first suspect Amanda -- it was her home, she knew the victim, was the one who found her, and has apparently been telling some untruths to the witchy school secretary. Amanda is quickly drawn up into solving this murder, in part because it becomes clear quickly that her life may be in danger.

I am looking forward to reading the whole series. OK, maybe this is a series for literate women who like funny, gutsy women "detectives" with sexy boyfriends... but the writing is high quality and the plotting improves in future books in the series (in this one, I spotted the killer about half-way through the book, but then I read a LOT of mysteries and like to think I'm good at that.)

Editorial Review:

Anthony Award winner for Best First Mystery Novel -- the debut of the Philadelphia-set Amanda Pepper
series.
Amanda Pepper, English teacher at Philly Prep, does not hate her life. But when a fellow teacher who's engaged to a senate candidate, begs for rest on Amanda's couch, then dies, things could be better. Then the police suspect her of murder, she begins her own investigation, and ends by teaching a certain blue-eyed cop a thing or two....
"Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true."
Lia Matera

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (An Amanda Pepper mystery)

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Sasha Is The Leading Suspect 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

When Amanda goes on vacation in Atlantic City with her friend Sasha Berg, a corpse ends up in their hotel room. In this case Sasha is the leading suspect. In order to clear Sasha, Amanda has to scour the boardwalk and the casinos.

I have enjoyed all of the Amanda Pepper Books. HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION was no exception.

Editorial Review:

"DELIGHTFUL...COLORFUL...Roberts plunks her mystery amid the glitter and grime of casino life."
--L.A. Daily News
After a tough year of teaching at Philly Prep, Amanda Pepper decides to go to Atlantic City with her friend, Sasha Berg. Yet a beach vacation turns deadly when a bludgeoned corpse shows up in their hotel room--and Sasha is the prime suspect.
So Amanda hits the boardwalk to track down the real killer, chasing down clues around the surf and in the casinos, and discovering along the way that appearances are more than deceiving: they can be criminal and, sometimes, downright murderous....
"Roberts combines appealing characters, a good puzzle and some serious messages in an entertaining whole."
--Publishers Weekly
"The Dorothy Parker of mystery writers."
--Nancy Pickard
"Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true."
--Lia Matera

Claire and Present Danger (An Amanda Pepper Mystery)

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the City of Brotherly Love, nobody knows a thing about Emmie Cade, a young widow who “appeared from nowhere,” and in the blink of an eye was engaged to Leo Fairchild, a middle-aged bachelor with a fortune. However, as her marriage date approaches, Emmie’s mother-in-law to be, the ailing, autocratic Claire Fairchild, receives anonymous letters. They suggest, none too subtly, that there’s a great deal to learn about the mysterious young woman, none of it good, and much of it involving the violent deaths of the men in her life.

Enter Amanda Pepper who, after completing her day of teaching English at Philly Prep, now moonlights as a P.I. along with C.K. Mackenzie, former homicide detective, current graduate student at Penn. The two of them are hired by Mrs. Fairchild to find out who the charming but evasive Emmie Cade really is. At thirty-two, the young woman has changed her address and name more often than some women change nail polish—and deliberately or not, she’s provided no clues or access to her past.

For Amanda, becoming C.K. Mackenzie’s investigative partner is an exhilarating change from the politics and problems of the new school term, and a welcome distraction from the ordeal of meeting her own prospective in-laws. She’s determined to prove herself an able investigator by ferreting out Emmie Cade’s secrets, but almost immediately, instead of looking at events of the past, she’s forced to deal with the here and now—including murder.

Brilliantly plotted, deeply perceptive, as delicious and sparkling as fine champagne, Gillian Roberts’s new Amanda Pepper masterpiece doesn’t miss a trick. More than ever, she’s “the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers . . . giving more wit per page than most writers give per book.” *


From the Hardcover edition.

A Hole in Juan: An Amanda Pepper Mystery (Amanda Pepper Mysteries)

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

No matter the season, the Philadelphia private school where Amanda Pepper teaches English is never a center of tranquility. But with Halloween and the annual Mischief Night party only days away, the hope is that nothing more than old-fashioned vandalism and pranks will take place.

No such luck. Trouble erupts long before the witching hour, as the school is plagued by a series of mishaps ranging from the trivial to the potentially deadly–and most of which seem to center on a group of popular seniors.

A fire alarm rings during a test; all the orange and black paint is stolen from the art room; the mustard packets are taken from the cafeteria. Perhaps more serious: chemicals and equipment disappear from the science lab, as does one of Amanda’s exams and her attendance book. And the dapper new science instructor, Juan Reyes, receives a threatening message recalling that a teacher was once flayed to death by his students.

As Amanda juggles teaching, moonlighting as a private investigator with her husband, C. K. Mackenzie, and coping with C.K.’s visiting sixteen-year-old high school-dropout nephew, she tries to find out what, or who, is behind the ominous events.

Before she can unmask the tricksters, the turmoil in the school increases when students rise up against the administration’s censuring (and censoring) of a campus poet. Then unrest escalates into a lethally explosive menace, and Amanda receives a warning that there is more–and far worse–to come.


From the Hardcover edition.

I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia (An Amanda Pepper mystery)

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Great Book!! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a really good book and one of the best in the series. Amanda Pepper is a well developed, funny character. She gets a little help from her policeman boyfriend and family. I recommend the entire Pepper series.

I'm a big Amanda Pepper fan but this is probably my least 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

favorite book that I've read so far in the series (and I've read most of them). Roberts typically uses as a theme (like a muscial theme) a piece of classic literature that schoolteacher/detective Amanda Pepper is teaching to her students. In this book, the literary work is "The Taming of the Shrew" and the theme is spousal abuse. I realize how important the issue is, but she was preaching to the choir.

And the book does get preachy, although in a literary novel dialogue way. Amanda is sorting books for a used book sale at her school, Philly Prep, when she comes across a book on spousal abuse. Since the subject has come up with a student in a discussion of the Shrew, she thinks she'll set it aside for the student -- but then notices someone has written notes in it and that whoever wrote the notes believes her husband will kill her. Amanda sets out to try to find the woman to see if she can help. In the meantime, she's trying to get a job moonlighting as a tutor with an organization kind of like Sylvan -- but a fellow teacher is having trouble in his relationship with the franchisers, and he warns her against it. Needless to say, these seemingly separate plot lines come together in the book.

This is well written, but more serious than many of the books in the series, and a bit too earnest for the kind of mystery I expect from Ms. Roberts. I might also add that like most of the series, I was way ahead of Mandy Pepper in the detecting of the spousal abuse victim and of the killer.

Editorial Review:

Book three in the Anthony Award-winning mystery series featuring Amanda Pepper, the resourceful English teacher at Philly Prep.
Amanda is sorting books for a school fundraiser, when she comes across a book for battered women that contains a special and frightening message from its original, anonymous owner. Desperate to learn who donated the books, Amanda's search leads her to deliberate brutality and its cold-blooded consequences.
Gillian Roberts is "the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers, laughing when--especially when--it hurts, and giving more wit per page than most writers give per book."
Nancy Pickard

In the Dead of Summer

Gillian Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A sensitive subject dealt with wit and intrigue 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

As usual, Ms. Roberts deals with a contemporary issue while we entertain ourselves. The protagonist Ms. Amanda Pepper teaches more than English and we become her rapt students. The characters are realistic and draw us into this multi-layered tale of the mystery of humanity. Please keep writing Amanda Pepper mysteries!!!

Editorial Review:

"FULL OF PLEASURES . . . Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit."
--Publishers Weekly
While teaching summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, English teacher Amanda Pepper feels a sense of foreboding. First, a reading of Romeo and Juliet activates some very strange chemistry. Then the computer science teacher begins receiving anonymous go-back-to-Africa phone calls. A young Vietnamese boy dies in a drive-by shooting. And late one night, outside a Chinatown massage parlor, student April Tuong is kidnapped.
Random violence? Perhaps. But Amanda refuses to let gentle April vanish without at least asking a few questions, starting in her own classroom. Yet the truth, when she finds it, is appalling, deadly, and much too close to home. . . .
"Tart-tongued, warm-hearted Amanda's fifth case is as engaging as her others, and here she gets to do more detection than usual."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true."
--Lia Matera

Helen Hath No Fury

Gillian Roberts

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Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Helen Hath No Fury, the latest outing in Gillian Roberts's Amanda Pepper series (which also includes, most recently, The Bluest Blood and Adam and Evil), finds the Philly Prep English teacher in familiar territory, negotiating the strong egos and stronger opinions of the members of her book club. When, after reading The Awakening, Helen Coulter vehemently denounces heroine Edna Pontellier's suicide as the ultimate cop-out, no one is surprised by her assertiveness (Helen makes sandpaper seem soft). But her plunge from the roof of her house the very next day comes as an awakening of the rudest sort. Although her death is ruled a suicide, the book-club members aren't buying it. When Amanda heads up an unofficial team of sleuths, she quickly realizes that her fellow booklovers have a great deal to hide--from Helen's business partner's bizarre financial dealings to a politician's wife's unsavory past. But are their secrets worth killing to keep?

People simply aren't what they seem, and that's enough to make Amanda long for order and precision: "I envision us like billiard balls--one gets poked and the rest of us are pushed into new and unexpected positions. My version of chaos theory. But now, I renounced happenstance. I became a devout cause-and-effect believer. I needed to." As always, she enlists cop and live-in amour C.K. Mackenzie (attention to devoted fans: the mystery of those darned initials will be solved at last!) to help her ferret out the truth.

What is usually a winning combination for Roberts--breezy humor and a lighthearted writing style--falls a little flat in this latest effort. Amanda reminds one of Lucille Ball--sardonic, goodhearted, a trifle insecure, and completely incapable of standing peacefully by when an opportunity to leap in and meddle presents itself. She has a finely honed sense of irony and an equally sharp appreciation of the absurd. This time around, her appeal is oddly muted; she seems less interested and less interesting, content to repeat ad nauseam her fervent desire for matters to improve and to dither about whether her newly kindled interest in marriage means that she is (gasp!) becoming her mother. With any luck, this stint in the narrative doldrums will be temporary, and the old Amanda will soon return with all sails flying. --Kelly Flynn