Guest Post: Ellen Byerrum

Please welcome Ellen Byerrum, author of the awesome Crimes of Fashion series. She stopped at my blog to talk about fashion and crime solving.

Welcome Ellen!

 

Lacey Smithsonian: Solving Crimes with Fashion Clues

Some people might not think that fashion and mystery go together. But I do, as I ponder what’s more mysterious than a great outfit? The way it fits and feels and flatters? And what’s more eye-popping fun than a crime of fashion?

I write the Lacey Smithsonian Crime of Fashion mysteries, where style and murder take center stage. Lacey has what I call ExtraFashionary Perception (EFP for short). Every outfit tells a story, especially for Lacey, who is a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington, D.C., The City Fashion Forgot. Although she would like to work on a “hard news” beat that would get her more respect around her newsroom, she has a talent for finding clues in clothing and motives in style a la mode.

We all have this power, but Lacey has it to the n^th  degree. She solves crimes with fashion clues. The major crimes in my books are more serious than reckless dressing or shopping while ability impaired; nevertheless, Lacey also finds time to address, in her Crimes of Fashion and Fashion Bites columns, the lesser fashion faux pas around her.

So, what is a crime of fashion? Maybe you’d like to smack someone who wears pajamas in public, or at least issue a fashion citation. Visible panty lines make you crazy. You’d kill for those heels. Figuratively, of course. But another woman might take action: She might shoplift a dress from a boutique, or pinch some posh lingerie.

Ideas for fashion crimes can come from anywhere. I was in a Victoria’s Secret lingerie shop one day while a sales clerk was making a crime report to a policeman. A woman had just stolen an entire drawer full of Victoria’s Secret bras. The clerk didn’t have a very good description of the culprit, but she knew one thing for certain: The thief was a 36C, the size of the stolen merchandise. I watched the cop dutifully write down this fashion clue, and I visualized the suspect lineup. It’s really too bad that 36C is the most common size of woman in America. I’ve haven’t used that particular crime of fashion in a book yet, but someday it might pop up.

Like Lacey, we all tell stories with our clothes, and we intuit much about others’ stories by what they wear. In just one look we make snap judgments about people, before they even open their mouths. Look, there’s a suburban soccer mom! A congressional staffer! A presidential candidate! (Run for your lives.) We label a boy in a blue Mohawk a skateboard punk, a girl in black lipstick, multiple piercings, and choppy hair with a tiara, a Goth princess. In Washington, D.C., we can tell at a glance the lawyers, the lobbyists, and the P-WIPs (“Powerful Women In Pearls”). It’s fun, it’s instinctive, and this skill might even protect us in times of danger.

The books in the Crime of Fashion series all pose questions about fatalities and fashion. For instance:

• What’s a bad haircut got to do with murder? (Killer Hair)

• What happened to a young designer who went missing during World War II, and could there be a connection with the disappearance of a present day Washington, D.C., intern with fashion-industry aspirations? (Designer Knockoff)

• What are the lethal ramifications when an extreme makeover turns an ugly duckling into a swan? (Hostile Makeover)

• A century ago, Romanov princesses were executed wearing jewel-filled corsets. Could there be one lost corset full of jewels still out there somewhere, silent witness to a massacre? (Raiders of the Lost Corset)

In my latest book, Death on Heels, Lacey’s ex-boyfriend is accused of murdering three women, all found barefoot on lonely country roads. Lacey must leave her comfort zone and the District of Columbia to travel back to Sagebrush, Colorado, where she cut her teeth as a reporter. Caught between two men, with a vicious killer on her trail, Death on Heels is a whole new—and potentially fatal—frontier for this fashion reporter.

As I continue the series, I find the books becoming more personal for Lacey, and more dangerous. And I’m always on the lookout for good crimes of fashion, both style-related and otherwise. If you’ve got a good one, let me know.

And thank you so much for inviting me here today.

Thank you so much for stopping by, Ellen! I've said it once and I won't stop saying it: this is a must read series! I can't wait to read all the first 7 books and I know I'll be so impatiently waiting for the ninth novel.

About the Author:

 

Ellen Byerrum writes the popular Crime of Fashion mysteries, set in bustling Washington, D.C., The City That Fashion Forgot. Featuring style sleuth Lacey Smithsonian, who solves crimes with fashion clues, the eighth book, Death on Heels, takes Lacey out of her comfort zone and into the Wild West where she confronts her past and an old boyfriend who is accused of murder.

While researching fashion, Byerrum has collected her own assortment of 1940s vintage dresses and suits, and the occasional accessory, but laments her lack of closet space. She has been a D.C. news reporter in Washington, a playwright, and holds a Virginia P.I. registration. Although she currently resides in Denver, fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian will continue to be based in Washington, D.C.

Byerrum is currently at work on the ninth book in the Crime of Fashion series, Veiled Revenge. You can find more about Ellen on her Web site or on Facebook.

www.ellenbyerrum.com


www.facebook.com/EllenByerrum


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http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/ellen-byerrum?store=allproducts&keyword=ellen+byerrum


http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/imba-members

Book Review: Death on Heels by Ellen Byerrum

 

Author: Ellen Byerrum

Series: Crimes of Fashion #8

My Rating: 5 cups

Blurb (from Goodreads):

Never! D.C. style scribe Lacey Smithsonian always swore she would never go back—back to Sagebrush, Colorado, that scruffy hard-luck Western boomtown where she'd earned her reporter’s spurs. But then three young women are murdered, their bodies left barefoot on lonely country roads, and the accused is her old boyfriend, Sagebrush rancher Cole Tucker. Lacey cowgirls up and heads out West (in her best cowboy boots) to prove Tucker's innocence. And perhaps to resolve the last of her old feelings for the man she had loved and left. Naturally, Lacey's plan doesn’t sit well with her current beau, private investigator Vic Donovan, who has his own history (and game plan) in Sagebrush.

Tucker takes one look at Lacey and kicks over everyone's game plan: He abducts her in a daring courthouse escape into the badlands of northern Colorado. On the run from the law with her old flame, in stolen vehicles and on horseback, with Vic and the posse in pursuit, Lacey's world turns upside down. Who can she trust? Tucker or Vic? The law or her own feelings and her reporter's instincts? Caught between two men, with a vicious killer on her trail, Death on Heels is a whole new—and potentially fatal—frontier for this fashion reporter.

Amazing! That's the first word that comes to my mind when thinking about this book. I don't even know where to begin, since I loved the entire book. It had everything: it had humor, sarcasm, action, romance and everything in between.

I loved Lacey. She's so funny, sassy, sarcastic, incredibly curious, stubborn. It was so fun reading about her adventures. I also loved her fashion articles and recommendations. They were fun to read and for someone who has nothing in common with fashion they were actually full with good ideas. Though I'm not sure I want to give up my old, favorite bag yet :P

I am new to this series and I am very sorry for that, because I feel like I almost lost an amazing story and a great heroine. I have to go back and learn more about her friends, Brooke and Stella, and about how Lacey and Vic reunited. Also, I want to read more of Lacey's Fashion Bites columns and about the troubles she's getting into.

If you haven't yet started this series and you want to read something fun and entertaining and something new, don't wait any longer! Read this series NOW!