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Wheeler-Dealer
by
Rita Moreau
amateur sleuth, cozy mystery in a Kindle edition that was published by Amazon on April 8, 2021 and has 334 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
First in The Ghost & Camper Kooky cozy mystery series about a pair of amateur sleuths and revolving around a sixty-something divorcée and the ghost that comes with her “new” vintage camper.
My Take
Let me start off with saying the premise is cute with its ghost needing to do good deeds to get out of purgatory and Mabel heading out to find a new way of life without her husband. The idea of getting out on the road and experiencing new things is exciting, and Bob is a trouper, helping Mabel find her camper and how to drive it. Irma makes the point that Mable shouldn’t “wait to do the things you should have done while you were living”. it’s too late once you’re dead.
”Just drive the truck, not the camper.”
Moreau uses first person protagonist point-of-view from Mabel’s perspective, so we see and experience everything Mabel does, including how she’s beset by that ghost as well as her daughter Meg who is determined to get her mother back to Jersey. It’s that reverse syndrome, where the parents get stuck into the “children” category. As for the secret Mabel and Jack share . . . I really don’t see how it’s such a dangerous issue??
She’s a sneaky one, that Mabel. Her daughter wants to know if she sold that gun . . . yeahhh . . . Gun-wise? How clueless are the cops and Selma that they don’t consider (or tell the cops) about that gun’s accessibility?
That statement Irma makes about guardian angels cracked me up. Irma does relate how and why Mabel’s camper is as fancy as it is, a sad tale. I did enjoy Moreau’s version of ghosts and purgatory.
There’s an interesting bit of back history on Daytona Beach — I didn’t know the cars actually raced on sand! I’m jealous of Mabel’s ride around the track, *grin*. But to call Mabel an official race car driver when she was only a passenger . . . no.
What I dislike about Wheeler-Dealer is all the tell and the bad segues. It’s like Moreau wrote the draft, mucked about with it a bit, and then decided she was done. I mean, what was with that paragraph on how the GPS operates? From a conversation about RV repairs, we’re suddenly finding out where Bob keeps his Airstream and where MCA, Louie, Ernie, and the aunts live . . . and then we’re back to the RV repairs. It sure was a good thing that Moreau gives us all that history about Cecilia’s career issues, oy. Yeah, sarcasm is alive and well in my house. What was the point of all that info about Joyce and Frank? And we need to know that Nashville is the capital of Tennessee? Coming from Bob, it’s weird. Now if it were Peggy or Josh, that would make more sense. Kind of casual, that mention of not taking a walk because of possible tornadoes.
As for her grammar and punctuation, oy. Moreau needs to learn about the differences in “Confidant vs Confidante vs Confident” (I’ll be writing up a post on Widow vs Widower); the difference between the plural and the possessive; when to capitalize “android”, “smoke”, and “Black”; her use of “spook” as a verb; Little Bear is wearing a turban?; and, as for berretta, I thought it was some fancy way of saying beret. Turns out it’s a gun. A Beretta.
And, please, please, please use the vocative case! Oh lord, it drove me nuts trying to figure out what (and who) Moreau actually meant!! “I had to be Mabel.” “Whatever we do Mabel from . . .” (sounds like it’s gonna be sex). “Lili let’s . . .” “So, Tony when . . .”
Moreau keeps telling us about Mabel and Irma’s adversarial relationship. Huh? Good thing she’s telling us, as there’s no real drama between them and I was not picking up any real sense of adversity. It was so annoying! And what’s with Irma being so useless? Sure she keeps Mabel informed of Chief Little Bear’s predictions, but does Irma ever go and spy on the bad guys so she can tell Mabel?
Moreau is so repetitive, e.g., she tells us that Vito is an accountant and then has to go on and say he was their money man and that Bob was elected as the leader and a paragraph later “he is a natural leader”. It’s a routine that goes on and on and doesn’t help with all the tell. Or those segues.
What is with Irma thinking Mabel swears worse than a sailor? Considering her lifestyle when Irma was alive, I should’ve thought she had a more realistic awareness.
I doubt that Little Bear had been a chief if he’d been a shaman/medicine man. As for an FBI lieutenant?? Did you know they have lieutenants in the FBI? I didn’t.
That Selma sounds like such a sweetie; she deserved to win that lottery. Oh well.
I’m with Mabel, and I enjoyed that karma coming to bite ‘im — Meg reckons Tiffanie has a boyfriend, lol. The other bit of karma? Yeah, you could see that coming.
The Story
It’s a radical change for the feisty Mabel, heading out with a group of RV owners to see the country. She needs that change, to switch up her life, after her jerk of a husband traded her in for a busty bimbo the same age as their youngest daughter.
Only the RV comes complete with a ghost who needs a good deed to get into Heaven, and cracking open a homicide at their first stop in Savannah could give them both a new lease on life.
The Characters
Mabel Gold used to see ghosts as a child and then it stopped. She has a love for Cosmos and an interest in martial arts. That last bit is kind of pointless as Mabel doesn’t actually use it. She’s named her F150 Thor and the vintage camper will be Betsy (Irma names the GPS Trixie). Aunt Sadie was a bossy Jewish lady.
Irma is a ghost (she died in 1998) with poltergeist abilities who has a lot to make up for, according to Saint Peter — she’d been a showgirl in Vegas, then a hooker, opened her own brothel — with the help of the mob, and drove an 18-wheeler. She birthed a son, Walt, who became a detective and is now a sheriff in a small town in Wyoming. Her sister, Betsy, adopted him as Walt Long. Chief Little Bear had been a Cherokee in North Carolina, a shaman, and medicine man, a couple hundred years ago. Amos is buried in the same cemetery as Little Bear.
Dr Jack Gold, a plastic surgeon to the Mob and then for the CIA (Cliff is his handler), traded Mabel in for Tiffanie, who’s the same age as their youngest daughter, Bianca. Jack and the non-maternal Tiffanie have had twins. Mabel and Jack’s other four kids include Jack Jr (Carmela is his wife, and he’s in business with Seymour doing financial planning), the gay Henry (he’d gone to school to be a lawyer but became a yogi instead, now he and Bianca are in the cupcake business), Meg is/was a criminal lawyer married to Seymour with a son, Sid; and, the ambitious Cecilia who is a dancer in New York.
The potential fellow RVers
Josh and Peggy Crawford are retired school teachers who like to pontificate. Oscar Johnson, retired military who dabbles in investments, is married to Eleanor “the Barracuda”.
Jim is the manager for the campground in Daytona Beach.
Savannah, Georgia
Tony is the campground manager. Joe, another dreamer like Cecilia, wants to make it big in Nashville while singing with a local band at Earl’s Bar. He lives at the campground and works as a mechanic to pay the bills. An attractive idea to the RVers. Joyce and Frank, a retired judge, own a Prevost RV. Gordy and Kari are more campers. Two foreigners, Cyrus and Iman, and their driver, Roy, have a Bluebird. Then there’s the bald, unfriendly Daryl who suddenly opens up about being a veteran with medical issues.
Selma is the friendly bartender at Earl’s; she has a son in the military who is posted overseas. Earl seems to be a nice guy, devastated by his wife’s death and the struggle to pay those medical bills. Gary, a bricklayer, is Earl’s disabled brother.
Tom and Jerry are with the Savannah police department. Lieutenant Daniel Kirk and Special Agent Bill Grove are with the FBI.
Boca Vista, Florida, is . . .
. . . where Mabel moved after her divorce. Lili Young is Mabel’s best friend in Florida and used to run the households of powerful families in Long Island. It’s a good thing Lili likes to cook and entertain! Her firefighter husband, Carl, had died of cancer. Now she’s married to Bob, a longtime friend of Carl’s, former Special Ops and a retired homicide detective who rides a Harley. He recently acquired a private detective’s license.
Mary Catherine “MC” Mahoney is her brilliant CPA — she used to work for the IRS; she and her husband live on a boat, the Mary Catherine at the Davy Jones’ Locker marina. It seems that MC is psychic and has two Greek aunts Sophia and Anna who read cards. “Limo Louie” Fox is Mabel’s lawyer who works out of his Cadillac limousine, which he also uses for Uber. Ernie is a bartender at Hotel Florida who had been in Special Forces and used to work for Homeland Security. He believes in ghosts too. The book club is not much on the books but the ladies have a good time and include Babs LaFleur, the self-crowned queen of Boca Vista (she’s divorced from Charlie LaFleur who’s a business partner with MC); the gay Bruce is Babs’ chauffeur, confidant, and food tester; and, Roxie (she has a big sports fishing boat) and Thelma (her money is from trust funds and has a collection of vintage cars) are big on regular plastic surgery. Natalie works for AAA.
Jack Sr’s dad had been a bookie and his mother, Big Stella, had mob connections. Little Stella became the mob wives’ ringleader after Big Stella died. “Vito”, a former accountant and mob patient of Jack’s, is the governor of Florida. Big Tony, a made man, was the turning point for Jack. Luca had been the hit man Irma killed. “Willie Nelson” is the collection agency.
William Smith’s daughter, Alena Beatrice Smith, was the first to be buried in what became the Pinewood Cemetery. The Boot Hill Saloon is across the street from it.
The Cover and Title
The cover is cheery with its summery blue sky and darker blue waters with a lighthouse in the distance. There’s a dark gray road on which sits Betsy, the silver “canned ham”, before the pale yellow ground where a couple of city signs frame the campfire in the middle with two deep red Adirondack chairs. The title is at the very top with the series info below it and the author’s name at the bottom, all in that deep burgundy.
The title is all about that Wheeler-Dealer who ends up dead.
