Mystery Women Authors

Dolores Johnson

Biography

Dolores Johnson is a freelance magazine writer and former newspaper reporter who lives in Aurora, Colorado, with her husband and a cat named Max who bears no resemblance to Spot, the unfriendly feline in Taken to the Cleaners. She is a field editor for American Drycleaner magazine.

Books

Mandy Dyer Mysteries

A Dress to Die For

In Denver, Kate Bosworth charges into Dyer's Cleaners to tell her friend Mandy Dyer about the incredible purchase she just made. Kate has bought a Fortuny original, worth over $5,000, for $10 at the local flea market. Though Kate runs a classical clothing store, Past Perfect fashions, this is one dress that was not for sale. She asks Mandy to clean the dress.

Three days later, Mandy worries when the avid Kate had not returned to claim her prize possession. She goes to Kate's home, only to find her friend dead and a piece of the cleaning ticket remaining in sight. Mandy learns that a man already tried to pick up the dress, but her help told the man that the dress was not ready. Though feeling a bit woozy from her Kate's untimely death, Mandy begins to investigate why a dress, even a vintage
one like a Fortuny, could lead to murder.

What makes the Mandy Dyer amateur sleuth tales so much fun is they are droll and irreverent as they take the reader on a cozy-like mystery tour of the Mile High City. The third novel in this delightful series, A DRESS TO DIE FOR, is like the previous two books (HUNG TO DIE and TAKEN TO THE CLEANERS), a fun reading experience, starring a delightful sleuth, who is as clean as the Rocky Mountain air. Fans of female amateur sleuths and regional cozies, as well as dry cleaning store owners and workers will love this series. (From Harriet Klausner at Amazon.com)

Published  Bantam Books 1998

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Taken to the Cleaners

When Betty the Bag Lady brings in a Dyer's Cleaners bag stuffed with a bloody suit, it doesn't take long for Mandy Dyer, the owner, to start wondering which of her clients may have been murdered, or worse, which of them may be a murderer. She soon learns it could be both when a high-priced lawyer is found bludgeoned to death in his office at a local law firm that Mandy handles for cleaning. Even though she turns the suit over to the police and finds herself smitten with the handsome (and single) detective in charge of the case, she can't help but start her own search for clues in the enormous catalogue of her customers' clothing.

Someone, however, wants to make sure there are no clues: Dyer's Cleaners is ransacked in the middle of the night, Mandy is suddenly receiving calls from a heavy breather, and someone is trying to track down Betty the Bag Lady. And everything takes a turn for the worse when Mandy finds Betty half dead from stab wounds in front of her store.

Now Many, along with her best stain remover, Mack, are going to scour through every detail to search for a murderer who is much closer to them than they think.

Published Bantam Books 1997

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Hung Up To Die

Mandy Dyer, owner of Dyer's Cleaners, has a spotless reputation for taking care of customers clothes until lipstick marks begin appearing on the freshly pressed garments. She's afraid one of her employees is trying to ruin her business, and she wonders if the employee could be working for a competitor, Lonnie "The Sleezeball" Mills, who has opened a discount cleaners in the neighborhood. Lonnie has been bombarding her customers with cut-rate coupons for his store.

When Mandy sees what she thinks is a mannequin suspended from the overhead conveyor inside the front window, she thinks it's another dirty trick, but when she gets inside, Mandy finds it's Lonnie's body, hanging from the conveyor. Mandy becomes a suspect because she had threatened to put a permanent end to his career if he didn't stop hanging around her plant. Adding to Mandy's problems is the arrival of her mother from Phoenix.

Published Island Books 1997

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Non Mystery Books

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Page created by Leone Moffat.

Last updated 03-Mar-2002