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: #832131 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-08
• Released on: 1998-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

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

From the Inside Flap
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.

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 funn read
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.

Harriet Klausner

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.

Typical Dolores...
This is another typical Mandy Dyer mystery. Something starts out at the cleaners and Mandy gets roped into a murder to solve. I do love how cleverly Ms Johnson works the cleaners into the mystery (this effort is a little better than some of her past books).

I did find this one a little more confusing because Mandy seemed to be going everywhere all the time and there were a lot of shady characters to read through, but I did enjoy it a great deal! Check it out!