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Fantasies are Murder
A Kim & Kelly Mystery
TJ Perkins
GumShoe Press (Paperback)
ISBN: 0-9777538-0-8 (0977753808)
Publication Date: January, 2006
List Price: $10.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): Kim and Kelly are two young girls who are not only best friends, but also love mysteries. When their families decide to go on a weekend excursion to a resort that specializes in staging a murder mystery for the guests, they thought their dream to be like their fictional detective idols and solve a case had at last come true. Given a free run of the resort, they mingled with the actors and actresses who dropped clues and helped vacationers solve the fictitious murder. It was all fun and games until they discover a real murder has actually taken place on the grounds. With their sights set on solving the case, Kim and Kelly place themselves in real danger. The closer they get to revealing the truth, the closer they get to becoming the next victims. And with only three days to solve the murder, the girls play a deadly game of cat and mouse - but who will get the cheese?
Review: Fantasies are Murder is the first book in the Kim & Kelly mystery series written for young adults. Originally published in 1994 by Booksurge (the self-publishing company of Amazon.com), this edition was published by GumShoe Press.
There are numerous production and editing flaws in Fantasies are Murder that significantly mar this otherwise reasonable effort by TJ Perkins. Perkins has recently become her own self-publisher, setting up GumShoe Press to publish her work. She should be applauded for this effort, but the lack of quality control on her own work is hard to understand.
Grammar, punctuation, and capitalization errors abound. Numerous words are misspelled, including, notably, the title of Chapter 6 ("Eves Dropping" instead of "Eavesdropping"). Incredibly, the review copy was listed as a second printing; it is difficult to believe that these problems weren't corrected between printings.
The story is basically a good one, based loosely on the Clue game. Young readers are likely to be familiar with Clue and therefore will understand the underlying premise of the story. But putting Kim and Kelly at risk of being killed in cold blood not once, but several times, is completely unnecessary. The story could have been told just as effectively, with just as much suspense, without having a loaded gun pointed at the girls.
Three additional titles were published simultaneously with this one. Hopefully, both the quality of the publication, as well as the story, told will improve in subsequent installments of this series.
Special thanks to GumShoe Press for providing a copy of Fantasies are Murder for this review.
Review Copyright © 2006 Hidden Staircase Mystery Books
Other mysteries in this series by TJ Perkins:
The
Secret in Phantom Forest
A Kim & Kelly
Mystery
GumShoe
Press (2006)
ISBN: 0977753816
Trade
Secret
A Kim & Kelly
Mystery
GumShoe
Press (2006)
ISBN: 0977753824
Image
in the Tapestry
A Kim & Kelly
Mystery
GumShoe
Press (2006)
ISBN: 0977753832
