Driven to Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery
First sentence: When Sylvia and Bernie came back from That’s Amore Drive-Through Wedding Chapel with my car, it would’ve been nice if they’d taken the body out of the trunk.
Synopsis from the back-cover: Las Vegas is a rocking place where impersonators of the legendary Rat Pack—Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.—are alive and well and performing nightly at clubs all over town. Except they’re not all. Alive, that is. When Brett lends her car to Sylvia Coleman and Bernie Applebaum for a drive-through wedding, she’s not expecting to get it back with a dead body in the trunk—much less one who looks like Dean Martin and sports a clip cord from a tattoo machine around his neck. As for the newlyweds, they vanish before they can start their honeymoon, so Brett and Jeff, Sylvia’s son, go undercover as bride and groom to sniff out the rat who seems to be targeting the impersonators. Whatever’s going on, it’s not amore...
Driven to Ink by Karen E. Olson is the third book in the A Tattoo Shop Mystery series. The protagonist, Brett Kavanaugh, is a female tattooist who owns her own tattoo shop, The Painted Lady.
The series can be read as a standalone. No, you do not have to read the books in sequence, but if you do, you would most definitely benefit from knowing who Brett Kavanaugh and her friends are, and appreciate them more.
I have been following Brett’s adventures from the start and have grown to like her very much. It is interesting how every time I receive a book from Karen—thank you, Karen!—I get to read them during trips. For the second book of the Tattoo Shop Mystery series, I got it just in time for my holiday and finished it on the beautiful Perhentian island. For this latest installment, I got it in time for my move to Penang and I finished the book on the way to Penang in the car.
Driven to Ink is scheduled to be released on September 7, and I got to read it way ahead of time. In this story, readers are invited into the Las Vegas Rat Pack impersonator scene. So, what’s so interesting about this? When Brett finds a dead body in the trunk of her car, that is. The Dean Martin-lookalike dead guy has a tattoo machine clip cord around his neck. The car is loaned to Sylvia Coleman and her bridegroom. Sylvia is Jeff Coleman’s mom and potentially Brett’s love interest.
Once again, Brett lands herself in some sort of a deep you-know-what. Brett, as usual, has to get herself involved (unofficially) in the investigation, but this time she has the help of Jeff Coleman. Brett and Jeff are tattoo shop competitors. They do not have the best of relationship to start with, but by now, it is getting better. I want to see something romantic happening between them. In this story, they have to pretend to be married just so they have a valid reason to go to the chapel where the dead guy worked without rousing any suspicions. Things, of course, get more interesting and complicated.
The chapters are short and punchy. They give a suspenseful feel to the story. It is also funny. In my past reviews, I have mentioned that Brett has a sense of humor. The four-hour drive in the car to Penang was a breeze and when I looked up, my sister had driven my mom and me safely to arrival. The verdict? I enjoyed this entertaining read very much. Karen has finished writing her fourth book Ink Flamingos and it is one that I definitely want to get my hands on.Will some serious sparks finally fly between Brett and Jeff in the fourth book? I sure hope so.
P/S: I am very excited to see my name in the “Acknowledgments” page of Driven to Ink alongside other bloggers such as Wendy, Christina, and Iliana. This came as a total surprise when John Valeri highlighted it to me.
More about Karen E. Olson and her books on the author’s website.
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