What do you think?
Rate this book
Claire Malloy #15
The Goodbye Body
Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas–an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer’s offer to let them stay at her well-stocked, well-equipped palatial home while she is traveling.
Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur–dubious people show up looking for the ‘traveling’ owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up–and subsequently disappearing–around the grounds of the house. Determined, for once, to stay out of the mysterious doings, Claire’s hand is finally forced when the disappearing body turns out to be only the first corpse to turn up…
Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur–dubious people show up looking for the ‘traveling’ owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up–and subsequently disappearing–around the grounds of the house. Determined, for once, to stay out of the mysterious doings, Claire’s hand is finally forced when the disappearing body turns out to be only the first corpse to turn up…
309 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
31 people are currently reading
402 people want to read
About the author
Joan Hess
115 books337 followersJoan Hess was the author of both the Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. Hess was a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Joan Hess also wrote a mystery series under the pseudonym of Joan Hadley.
Series contributed to:
. Crosswinds
. The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories
. Malice Domestic
. Deadly Allies
. Sisters in Crime
Joan Hess also wrote a mystery series under the pseudonym of Joan Hadley.
Series contributed to:
. Crosswinds
. The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories
. Malice Domestic
. Deadly Allies
. Sisters in Crime
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
August 29, 2015
I have read this book many times to relax myself. It is a fast read and holds my attention. Claire see a rat in her apartment. Desperate for a place to stay she accepts an offer to house set for a few weeks.Caron and Ienz see a man they say who had a gunshot in his head. When the police arrive there is no body. The girls see the body several times before Claire find it in the freezer. Before long Claire learns there is no record of her friend before she moved to Faberville. There are several twists that chance the direction of plot that keep turning the pages. I recommend this book
September 24, 2017
So I've read two books each of Joan Hess's Claire Malloy and Arly Hanks series and it's been rated the same each time. I guess her style just isn't for me. This one started out all right but then it took a slog through a boggy middle. It doesn't help that I find Claire arrogant and irritating and her daughter, Caron to be such an over the top teen whiner.
It starts when Claire sees a rat in her apartment and a well to do friend, Dolly, asks her to house sit while she's out of town so Claire packs up Caron and Caron's best friend, Inez and they move in for a little while to enjoy the pool, Jacuzzi and other rat-free immensities. Almost immediately two young women, Sara Louise and Madison show up to see ‘aunt Dolly’ and ask to stay because their car is having trouble and they have nowhere else to do. And Caron and Inez find a dead body out by the pool.
The body disappears a few times before it finally turns up in the freezer and Madison goes missing. Claire of course has to investigate while juggling her whiny daughter, her bookstore (which she’s in so rarely I don’t know how she hasn’t lost it and gone bankrupt), her cop boyfriend, Peter, and some newcomers, an older couple Lucy and Daniel who keep trying to set her up with someone else out at the ritzy country club townhouses, the handsome Gary, not to mention the slew of pool cleaners, maids and delivery guys popping in and out of the home.
It takes Claire almost half the novel before she truly starts investigating but that doesn’t stop the chief of police, the mayor and some other city council people to be screaming for her head (which makes NO sense in the context of this story because all she did was find the body. I get that this is book 15 or so and there’s a history but still it doesn’t fit this story). There really isn’t a reason for Claire to investigate really because boyfriend, Peter is on the case but she doesn’t trust him to do it. This, in fact, was problematic for me because it came across as she thought she was smarter and better at Peter’s job than he was. She never once acted in love with this guy. He seemed more like a prop for her.
Other things that just didn’t work for me was that she talked about details of the case including where she thought Dolly might have been with everyone even after it was obvious the killer was looking for her. Almost complete strangers including Daniel, Gary, Lucy, the pool guys, the delivery dude, didn’t matter. She wasn’t questioning them, just spilling the details.
And then there’s Caron and Inez. What sort of person leaves their kid in the line of fire? She never once truly attempts to get Caron out of the way even after Sara Louise was attacked at the house or the body was found or she knows someone is tearing up places looking for something Dolly might have. And what of Inez? I know she has parents. They never figure into this story. If it was you wouldn’t you run there and grab your child out of that house?
Never once did it occur to her that the delivery guy was hinky. When was the last time a delivery man, barring a furniture/heavy appliance guy ever come into your house and sit down for drinks and talk for twenty minutes? Even after she learns certain characters are weird and she should tell Peter she doesn’t do it right away.
Will I read another? I suppose if I do the literary destinations challenge and I need Arkansas again but I’m in no hurry.
It starts when Claire sees a rat in her apartment and a well to do friend, Dolly, asks her to house sit while she's out of town so Claire packs up Caron and Caron's best friend, Inez and they move in for a little while to enjoy the pool, Jacuzzi and other rat-free immensities. Almost immediately two young women, Sara Louise and Madison show up to see ‘aunt Dolly’ and ask to stay because their car is having trouble and they have nowhere else to do. And Caron and Inez find a dead body out by the pool.
The body disappears a few times before it finally turns up in the freezer and Madison goes missing. Claire of course has to investigate while juggling her whiny daughter, her bookstore (which she’s in so rarely I don’t know how she hasn’t lost it and gone bankrupt), her cop boyfriend, Peter, and some newcomers, an older couple Lucy and Daniel who keep trying to set her up with someone else out at the ritzy country club townhouses, the handsome Gary, not to mention the slew of pool cleaners, maids and delivery guys popping in and out of the home.
It takes Claire almost half the novel before she truly starts investigating but that doesn’t stop the chief of police, the mayor and some other city council people to be screaming for her head (which makes NO sense in the context of this story because all she did was find the body. I get that this is book 15 or so and there’s a history but still it doesn’t fit this story). There really isn’t a reason for Claire to investigate really because boyfriend, Peter is on the case but she doesn’t trust him to do it. This, in fact, was problematic for me because it came across as she thought she was smarter and better at Peter’s job than he was. She never once acted in love with this guy. He seemed more like a prop for her.
Other things that just didn’t work for me was that she talked about details of the case including where she thought Dolly might have been with everyone even after it was obvious the killer was looking for her. Almost complete strangers including Daniel, Gary, Lucy, the pool guys, the delivery dude, didn’t matter. She wasn’t questioning them, just spilling the details.
And then there’s Caron and Inez. What sort of person leaves their kid in the line of fire? She never once truly attempts to get Caron out of the way even after Sara Louise was attacked at the house or the body was found or she knows someone is tearing up places looking for something Dolly might have. And what of Inez? I know she has parents. They never figure into this story. If it was you wouldn’t you run there and grab your child out of that house?
Never once did it occur to her that the delivery guy was hinky. When was the last time a delivery man, barring a furniture/heavy appliance guy ever come into your house and sit down for drinks and talk for twenty minutes? Even after she learns certain characters are weird and she should tell Peter she doesn’t do it right away.
Will I read another? I suppose if I do the literary destinations challenge and I need Arkansas again but I’m in no hurry.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2023
Claire Malloy is one of my favorite fictional amateur detectives. Her internal dialogs are sarcastic and sassy. Daughter Caron and Caron's best friend are the epitome of teenagers and their reactions to things and to each other. And Claire's reactions to them are so very realistic! One of the most inventive parts of this book is the corpse that disappears and reappears sporadically. Is it real or someone's imagination?
This is one of my favorite books in the series.
This is one of my favorite books in the series.
December 24, 2019
This all starts with rats in Claire Malloy's apartment. Which then leads to her and her daughter staying in the house of a good customer of the book store while the apartment is being fixed up. Of course, Carron (her daughter) and friend Inez discover a body that then disappears. Love reading the Claire Mallor Mysteries.
September 20, 2018
It’s a cute story! Seriously a nice read but one I could put down and come back to. The story line of moving into the home of a mere acquaintance and bring along your daughter and a friend is unbelievable.
March 23, 2019
One I had not read before. Fun, even if most of the victims and perps are "not from around here." And though Claire does inevitably end up in danger ... this time it was not because of a decision she'd made to go to a dangerous place. The danger came to her.
March 24, 2023
#15 in this entertaining cozy mystery series. Claire Molloy,widowed mother of a teenage girl runs a semi successful bookstore in a college town. She is often pulled into mysteries that happen locally. This time she is caught up between the mob and the FBI,just trying to help a friend.
Read
January 20, 2025The premise is a bit light--accepting a house sitting job from someone you barely know and then letting stray relatives of that person stay there too. However, I do enjoy the clever Claire Malloy and look forward to her next adventure.
April 18, 2022
fiesr book I have
e read of Joan Hess. keeps one .guessing
good beach read
e read of Joan Hess. keeps one .guessing
good beach read
May 25, 2023
A convoluted mess of a plot that took a long time to wade through. Thankfully, it unraveled itself in the end.
February 4, 2024
Quick and easy read.
May 13, 2024
I love a good cozy mystery with lots of Laughs! The teenager in this series is Hysterical! I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the rest of this series!
July 4, 2024
This book contains an amazing story
score: 5/5
from the cover I fall in love
score: 5/5
from the cover I fall in love
December 17, 2017
Fun, lighthearted mystery
PG-13
No sex
No violence -- other than usual cozy mystery bumps and bruises.
Some strongish language.
Claire, her daughter Caron, and Caron's friend Inez jump at the opportunity to house-sit in a luxurious home while their place is being fumigated and repaired.
Surprise. A dead body shows up. Bigger surprise. It disappears. Surprise. It's back.
Amid smart-aleck jibes between mother and daughter and those supplied by a couple more unexpected guests, we follow the twisted trail of who this dead guy is and why he keeps coming and going.
Fun read.
PG-13
No sex
No violence -- other than usual cozy mystery bumps and bruises.
Some strongish language.
Claire, her daughter Caron, and Caron's friend Inez jump at the opportunity to house-sit in a luxurious home while their place is being fumigated and repaired.
Surprise. A dead body shows up. Bigger surprise. It disappears. Surprise. It's back.
Amid smart-aleck jibes between mother and daughter and those supplied by a couple more unexpected guests, we follow the twisted trail of who this dead guy is and why he keeps coming and going.
Fun read.
March 3, 2011
Claire Malloy, bookstore owner, smells a rat. And sees it too, sneaking about in her own house. After throwing the book at her landlord, who grudgingly agrees to make extensive cleanup and repairs to her duplex, Claire and her daughter find themselves out of a home for two weeks. In steps Dolly, loyal customer, to offer her place to them as she jaunts off to visit her sister in Austin. And that's when the bodies start showing up--with most of them being the same body.
Not being a fan of mobster, well, anything, this book didn't excite me as much as the previous Claire book. The mob characters all began to blend together, since I don't possess the experience with such characters to detect minor differences in their makeup. Everyone came across as overly inquisitive, to hide the characters who were trying to pump Claire or one of the girls for information. I could see one random stranger asking curious questions, but four? Thankfully, most everyone had perfectly good explanations eventually.
Dolly was the linchpin character to this whole story, but she was painfully boring when in a scene. Sure, she was supposed to be secretive in order to draw out the plot. But every time it was "fake laugh, lame excuse, admit a lie, leave abruptly". On top of that, this plot ended with a double reveal after the climactic action ended: one for most of the suspect characters, and one after that for Dolly. It just felt like she never fit well with her own story.
I really enjoyed Cal, Caron and Inez in this book. The girls were amusing, believable, and entertaining with their chosen hobby. The rich girls who entered the story at the beginning seemed to be treating the plot as a strip mall, and only showed up in it reluctantly, afraid to really interact with anything they saw.
The plot seemed unnecessarily complicated for a mystery novel of this caliber. Perhaps that's due to my lack of Soprano-esque experience, though. It continued to feel like a stretch to involve distant doings in Farberville; nothing felt exceptionally immediate or clear much of the time.
The writing left me wanting, honestly. There was, unfortunately, a nice crop of typos. Baffling. I also noticed a tendency to flip-flop on Claire's level of intelligence between scenes.
Not being a fan of mobster, well, anything, this book didn't excite me as much as the previous Claire book. The mob characters all began to blend together, since I don't possess the experience with such characters to detect minor differences in their makeup. Everyone came across as overly inquisitive, to hide the characters who were trying to pump Claire or one of the girls for information. I could see one random stranger asking curious questions, but four? Thankfully, most everyone had perfectly good explanations eventually.
Dolly was the linchpin character to this whole story, but she was painfully boring when in a scene. Sure, she was supposed to be secretive in order to draw out the plot. But every time it was "fake laugh, lame excuse, admit a lie, leave abruptly". On top of that, this plot ended with a double reveal after the climactic action ended: one for most of the suspect characters, and one after that for Dolly. It just felt like she never fit well with her own story.
I really enjoyed Cal, Caron and Inez in this book. The girls were amusing, believable, and entertaining with their chosen hobby. The rich girls who entered the story at the beginning seemed to be treating the plot as a strip mall, and only showed up in it reluctantly, afraid to really interact with anything they saw.
The plot seemed unnecessarily complicated for a mystery novel of this caliber. Perhaps that's due to my lack of Soprano-esque experience, though. It continued to feel like a stretch to involve distant doings in Farberville; nothing felt exceptionally immediate or clear much of the time.
The writing left me wanting, honestly. There was, unfortunately, a nice crop of typos. Baffling. I also noticed a tendency to flip-flop on Claire's level of intelligence between scenes.
April 2, 2017
This is the first book by this author I have ever read. I did not know it was part of a series when I borrowed it the first time. I had to check this book out three times before I could finish it. The only thing and I mean the only thing I liked about the book was the plot. The dialog was not funny at all, more like irritating, especially when spouted by Claire's brat of a daughter I hated the characters, especially the main character's daughter Caron. I wanted to strangle this teenage brat. The main character Claire was irritating and not much of a mother to her daughter. How she could be seen as some novel sleuth is beyond me. She didn't appear all that bright or intelligent. Is she considered a sleuth because she owns a book store? None of the characters in this book stood out except maybe for Dolly and she was not directly in play most of the book. The so called FBI agents did not fit the part and Claire's cop boyfriend was dull as dishwater. Most of the characters could be figured out as being something other than they proclaimed as soon as they appeared on the scene. So much about this book was obvious but I must give it to the author, she did keep Dolly's secret until the books end. Maybe at sometime I will attempt to read another book by this author but no time in the near future. I've read a lot of books featuring amateur sleuths but Claire Malloy does not cut it for me.
July 25, 2016
The Claire Malloy series is a step above a Cozy, mainly because you actually LIKE the characters. Claire is the single mother of Caron, a teenaged daughter who's at the age of speaking in ALL CAPS. Claire is also the proprietor of a bookstore (which she doesn't seem to spend much time in, on account of solving murders and trying to calm Caron down to at least italics). Peter is Claire's detective boyfriend whom she's lucky to have, otherwise she'd spend the majority of her time in a holding cell for interfering with crime scenes.
If you're looking for a mystery series where you actually LIKE the characters (I love Christie, but spent much of my extracurricular time plotting the death of the sanctimonious bitch Ms. Marple), start on the Claire Malloy series. Likewise, if you're wondering whether to have children, pay close attention to Caron. I work with kids and can assure you that all teen girls go through the "I HATE YOU--I NEED A RIDE TO THE MALL" phase. Unless you're saving for boarding school, pay attention.
If you're looking for a mystery series where you actually LIKE the characters (I love Christie, but spent much of my extracurricular time plotting the death of the sanctimonious bitch Ms. Marple), start on the Claire Malloy series. Likewise, if you're wondering whether to have children, pay close attention to Caron. I work with kids and can assure you that all teen girls go through the "I HATE YOU--I NEED A RIDE TO THE MALL" phase. Unless you're saving for boarding school, pay attention.
September 9, 2015
I really enjoy this series featuring book store owner Claire Malloy. This book was no exception, although at one point there was a situation that was a bit unbelievable, even within the at times limitless confines of fiction.
June 21, 2008
Oh my -- how does Joan Hess do it again and again and again? Her Claire Malloy mysteries are funny, smart, and interesting. She has me hooked by the cleverness of her heroine, as well as by the intricacies of the plot. I devoured this one in a single plane ride. I do think Claire may be becoming a bit TOO testy, but just a tad, as her ascerbic wit is part of her unending charm. Well done, Ms. Hess!
January 2, 2012
I grabbed this book from our library because the cover was cute. Not my kind of book. Stereotypical characters (the main character, a female, described herself as something like "pretty good looking"). Of course, she dates the manly, handsome local cop. The author used a lot of big words to tell and average mystery story. This is not "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "War & Peace", but it was entertaining enough and worth the price (free)!
August 11, 2012
Um... I don't think I'm interested enough to read the other novels in this series. It was slow at first, then got weird but not page-turning weird, even when it was concluded, there were still facts to be disclosed to the reader which happened in the last chapter. I think the way it was written (first person) made it difficult for me to really relate to the characters, and gave the narrator an arrogance I found irritating.
September 17, 2012
As with most murder mystery books, I was hooked to the storyline right from the beginning. I didn't care for the enormous influx of random characters that haphazardly popped into the book. I also felt the sarcasm between Claire and her daughter was a bit over the top. I can't give up Patricia Cornwell for Joan Hess, yet I wouldn't mind reading another one.
October 12, 2012
Claire Malloy needs a place to stay while her apartment is being fumigated and a customer Dolly Golightly offers her the use of her house while she's out of town. Soon Claire's duaghter Caron and her friend Inez find a dead body by the pool but the body soon dissappears. The story gets a bit convoluted with mobsters and FBI agents but a good read.
June 25, 2009
Another Joan Hess--and I have two more at home to read, unless I decide I need a change. So far still finding her a very enjoyable read.
Read
June 18, 2010reread
January 14, 2011
Kindle/rated four stars because it was a fun read. I've had a lot on my mind and this proved to be the perfect light hearted, but well plotted distraction.
August 23, 2011
This was given to Joe but I'm reading it!
June 28, 2012
Same old light summer mystery with the busy body woman figuring out the crime. I didn't find any fresh language or ideas. Just so-so.
July 14, 2012
Claire Malloy is a fun character. Quick read.
March 27, 2013
Hated it. Only book I've read by this author and I couldn't stay awake. Too wordy, vague, and not funny at all like it suggests in the synopsis.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews