G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

not the author's best effort, 2007-03-19
Though I finished this book and got some enjoyment from it, I think the quality of writing has deteriorated compared to the author's previous books. I felt the story was very disjointed and the motives of the characters not very well established. The travel descriptions were surprisingly uncompelling which was disappointing because the Australian setting for this episode could be so much. Lastly, the attempt at writing the Australian accent was embarassingly awful!

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Tour group in Australia and Murder, 2007-03-13
Once again, Emily Andrew is escorting a group of senior citizens from Iowa, including her Nana, on a trip to Australia. When Nana takes a photo of what appears to be an extinct plant, life for the group goes topsy turvy once again. When Claire Bellows is found dead from the group, Emily is certain she found the plant and was murdered. Emily begins snooping around the myriad of suspects to find the killer. And there are many interesting characters on this trip, including Jake and Lola Silverthorn who seem to always be fighting, irritating Nora and her son Heath Acres, Conrad Carver who started everything with discovering the plant in Nana's photo, Guy Madelyn who is another photographer on this trip, and many members of a scientific conference. Then there's the whole Iowa tour group. They're entertaining on their own! br / br /Add to this Emily's two suitors, detective Etienne Miceli and tour director Duncan Lazarus, and you have a hilarious cozy mystery! She is supposed to be deciding between them, which is no easy feat. Can she find the killer and figure out which one is the love of her life without putting herself in danger or alienating them both? br / br /I love this series. I find myself laughing out loud every time I read one. Emily is such a fun character and the various Iowa senior citizens are a hoot. The hardest part for me is not laughing out loud when I'm reading in bed late at night and waking my husband! br / br /You don't have to read these in order, but the characters do group and evolve, so it helps to understand the love triangle in this one if you've read previous books. I highly recommend this book and the whole series! I hope there will be many more. br /

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

Travel escape, 2007-03-09
I learn about various travels by reading these books. This one was a tad confusing, but it was still very enjoyable, especially her travels throughout Australia. I also LOVE the people she travels with. They are more enjoyable than the plot itself. Her grandmother must have grown up with Stephanie Plum's grandmother! they are both hilarious. Enjoy.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Acceptable mental cotton candy, 2007-02-12
Sometimes, you want to read a story that doesn't exercise your brain: a simple and fun cozy mystery that keeps your attention but can be read after an exhausting week at work. You've had _enough_ thinking; right now you want something lightweight and silly (without being stupid). G'Day to Die does a good (not awesome but good) job of fulfilling that role. br / br /If you've read the earlier books in this series, you know that our heroine Emily is a miswesterner who is also the tour guide for a group of senior citizens (including her grandmother Nana). In every locale (from Switzerland to Hawaii), Emily seems to stumble across a body and have a mystery to solve. (Ostensibly, each book could stand alone, but I do recommend you read the books in order.) Here, the Iowans are visiting Australia, when Nana apparently takes a Polaroid of a long-extinct plant. And then someone on the tour dies... br / br /It's difficult to be funny for several pages, and to put together a lighthearted murder mystery that keeps the reader guessing. It's even harder to do so for a series of books. I like the series and this book in particular, but they're beginning to show the strain. I put down this book twice to read something else... but then I *did* come back and finish it, so Maddy Hunter is still managing to get the job done. br / br /Emily is a mixture of sensible and vapid, wryly funny and shallow. When she's funny, she can be _very_ funny. However, one of the irritating subplots in this book is that Emily's two beaus have come along on the tour, both hoping to win her heart; those relationships have never quite worked for me. It's fun to read about their sexual tensions, but even in a fluffy story I like to imagine that Emily would actually _talk_ with a man with whom she's considering spending the rest of her life. (Now, I could imagine a guy flying around the world for Nana. *She's* a hoot.) br / br /Anyway: G'Day to Die is a fun little story, suitable for distraction during a plane trip. It's entertaining enough to make it worth the effort to continue reading in the series, despite a sometimes-uneven story flow.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, 2007-02-07
`G'Day to Die' takes us to Australia were the young and sexy tour guide, Emily Andrews is leading her regular group of elderly Iowans on a tour of the land down under. br /Right away a dead woman from another touring group is found. In the area of her body is a picture of the landscape that shows a flower that some believe has been extinct for millions of years. This flower could possibly unlock the mysteries of aging, diseases, and even baldness. At the same time, another story unfolds with an old lady and her son that are looking for a long lost twin sister of the old lady. The sudden death of the old lady plus previous death sends Emily down the road to suspicion of almost everyone. To complicate matters the two men who want to marry Emily, Etienne and Duncan, are on the tour and make total fools of themselves trying to get her to marry them. br /The story has humor, murder, deadly critters that can kill in a heartbeat, and some real nutcase characters.