Murder of a Pink Elephant (Scumble River Mysteries) Mass Market Paperback – Jul 2004

School psychologist Skye Denison has lined up her older brother Vince's bank "Pink Elephant" to play at the Scumble River High School's Valentine dance. While attending a band rehearsal before the dance, Skye becomes worried because the band members seem to be fighting amongst themselves. During the Valentine dance, a fire breaks out in the gymnasium where the dance is being held. After the fire is brought under control, a charred body is found by the stage. The victim turns out to be one of the members of the band, and the local police chief seems to be focussing on Vince as his prime murder suspect. With her proven track record in solving the town's mysteries, naturally Skye tries to solve the murder in order to clear her brother.

There have been quite a few strange occurrences in Scumble River of late, with the school fire being just the latest of them. Skye begins to suspect that some of the high school students may be taking drugs, which could account for their bizarre actions. So in addition to looking for a murderer, Skye finds herself searching for a meth lab as well. Also, a slick promoter named Moss Gibson has rolled into town to try to build a new amusement park, and Mr. Gibson is trying to get the local residents to sell their farmland to him. There's lots going on in Scumble River!

This series is really enjoyable in the way it depicts small town life, where everybody knows everybody else. One of the funny storylines in this book is how Skye and her new boyfried Simon must sneak around the town to keep their relationship out of the gossip mill.

All the different storylines are well tied together at the end, but certainly kept me guessing about the murderer's identity.

Here's another fun little lite cozy murder mystery featuring Skye Dennison and her friends and family. This time, it appears Scumble River and the surrounding communities in Illinois' Heartland are being visited by the plagues of Egypt: Fire, Flood, Famine, - and the death of the lead singer in Skye's brother Vince's band, the Band Formerly Known As Plastic Santa, now Pink Elephant. In keeping with the Band Motif, the chapter names are apt and fitting from Our Generation - like "Fire and Rain" and "That'll Be The Day."

Author Denise Swanson, herself a School Psychologist in Illinois, was paying attention in writing class when the teacher told them to "Write what you know!" The results work. The reader need not read all the books in this series in order - Swanson artfully gives new readers the background and returning readers a refresher course - but why miss all the fun back down on the farm? The plot and pace are perky. The style's breezy. If you live in small town, or used to, you KNOW some of these characters!
/TundraVision, <- that's my Amazon reviewer name, it's been that for a long, long time, & it will remain my Amazon reviewer name!

When Sky Dennison graduated school, she left Scumble River before the ink on her diploma was dry. After she lost her job, her boyfriend dumped her and she didn't have enough money to pay the rent, she returned home. Her uncle got her the position of school psychologist and after almost three years Sky realizes she likes living and working in her hometown, being close to friends, family and her lover Simon.
The high school sponsors a dance for the students and hire Pink Elephant, a band that includes Sky's brother Vince, to play at the event. She notices that two members are at each other's throat but her brother won't tell her why. At the night of the dance, a fire alarm evacuates the building; when Skye looks to see if anyone is in the building, she trips over the dead body of a band member. Vince is a prime suspect so Sky once again tries to track down a murderer so that she can exonerate his brother.
Although Scumble River is a small community, it has many of the problems of a big city including students taking hard drugs. While trying to find a killer, Sky always wants to find the methamphetamine lab so the sheriff can close it down and arrest the dealer. The heroine is tough when it comes to her students and her family, going the extra mile to get them out of trouble yet with Simon all she can think of is "Give me give me good lovin". MURDER OF A PINK ELEPHANT is an upbeat amateur sleuth mystery that takes place in a quirky town with zany characters.
Harriet Klausner

Haven't we already done the "Skye saves her brother from a murder rap" storyline? Six books into the series, repeating storylines is not a good thing.

While the premise for this series was decent in the beginning, it's already starting to get old and worn down. Skye is such a geek that there's no way on earth a bunch of high school students would trust or confide in her. She runs around town sticking her nose into everyone's business, putting herself in danger, and generally making a nuisance of herself. And yet we're supposed to believe that the police are so incompetent that they ignore her leads and "force" her into solving crimes on her own?

I'm also not sure if the author is now going for romance as well as mystery, but it's just not working. There's no chemistry at all between Skye and Simon, and there's even less between Skye and Wally. Skye's trysts are not sexy in the least, and the author is really damaging the series by continuing to try to push them on us.

I realize the setting for these books is small-town midwest America, but can we please try to bring Skye into the 21st century? How many people do you know come out with conversations like, "He's not a possible instrument for harm" when talking about the safety of a student? Ugh.

Skye Denison, school psychologist thought she had trouble with her job, but she actually had it easy compared to her brother Vince.

Normally a hairdresser, Vince and his band, formerly known as the Plastic Santa's have renamed themselves as the Pink Elephants and are playing at the Valentine Dance at the high school. That is if he and his band can stop beating each other up.

Things get really hot when a fire breaks out at the high school and Logan Wolf, lead singer winds up dead.

Skye is determined not to get involved in the investigation, but when Sheriff Wally seems to have Vince in his sights again as the murder suspect, Skye decides she has to act.

Could Logan's murder have anything to do with the rumors of drugs in the school? Or maybe it had something to do with Logan refusing to sell Moss Green his farmland so Moss could put up Pig In A Poke - his amusement park.

Wally isn't too pleased with her investigations, he's running for mayor and he's hassled at every press conference about the fact that he can't solve a crime and has to rely on a citizen to do the investigating.

Even after several attempts on her life, Skye continues her search until she comes face to face with the murderer.

Highlights:

Skye's family. Her parents and godfather Charlie and brother Vince are very close and obviously adore Skye.

Sheriff Wally. I've like him since the first book, he doesn't mind Skye investigating usually, but doesn't like the fact that she takes unnecessary risks.

Justin And Frannie, two somewhat geeky high school students who work on the school paper and do a lot of undercover investigation. They come across a lot of clues that they then pass on to Skey.

May's cement goose that she dresses up on her front lawn.

Lowlights:

Skye - I'm beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with this woman. She surprised at her brother censure of Logan sleeping with a groupie, after all Vince has quite a reputation. Skye obvioiusly doesn't think there is a difference between the single Vince being with someone and the married Logan being with someone.

Skye gets into trouble several times when she should have given some information to Wally, he didn't answer her phone calls and when she went to the station she realized his ex-wife Darleen was intercepting the messages, so next time when she really needs to tell him something and he doesn't call her back, does she go to his house and tell him? Of course not, she'll do it in the morning, afterall what could happen before then? Justin and Frannie show more intelligence in their investigating than she does.

Bunny - the mother of Simon (Skye's boring boyfriend). Fortunately, she is only in a few pages of the book. I cannot stand this character, Skye finds her refreshing after having to put up with her overbearing mother. I suppose she would have liked it if her mother ran out on her and her father, came back several times and ran off again, the last time twenty years ago when she not only ran off but took all the money out of her husband's savings account. That's the kind of mother Bunny was to Simon.

As I said in my earlier review of this series. Skye picked the wrong boyfriend. Simon, local funeral parlor owner and coroner is ok, but there are absolutely no sparks between Skye and him.

Skye seems so flaky at times that I would wonder about her abilities at her job in helping troubled kids.

This is a strange series where I find that everyone but the heroine, her boyfriend and his mother are so wonderful you want to continue reading about them. The mystery itself is very good. A lot of clues but no cheating on the ending, although I suspected who the killer was but wasn't confirmed until the end.

It's not too late to dump Simon and his mother.