Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss

Sophie Katz Murder Mystery #4

by Kyra Davis

Mystery writer and dabbling recreational sleuth Sophie Katz is head over heels in love—with a three-bedroom Victorian. She's just got to have it, despite a few drawbacks. Her slimy ex is the Realtor. The rich, creepy seller wants her to join San Francisco's spirited Specter Society. And her first tour of the house reveals, well, a lifeless body clutching a cameo with a disturbing history of its own.

There's no way Sophie is going to give up the ghost on her dreams of stained glass and original woodwork, though—even when things become officially weird. A Society member is found with a slashed throat, and Sophie's house might as well be yelling, "GET…OUT!" She's hearing footsteps, lights are turning themselves off and her stuff keeps moving inexplicably. To top it off, boyfriend Anatoly thinks it's all in her head.

Sophie is 99 percent sure her problems are caused by someone six feet tall instead of six feet under, but the only way to be sure is to track down the killer—before he pushes her kicking and screaming to the other side….

Genres: Mystery, Chick Lit, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Humor, Romance, Audiobook

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

New York Times bestselling author of JUST ONE NIGHT, DECEPTIVE INNOCENCE, the Sophie Katz mysteries, SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING and the upcoming DANGEROUS ALLIANCE, JUST ONCE MORE and JUST ONE LIE (July 28th, 2015).

Reviews

[Ginger · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started out as just another enjoyable typical cozy mystery. A bit too heavy on the romantic stuff for me but not a deal breaker. So was it necessary to be this transphobic? Is it hard to treat trans people with a modicum of respect and decency? I can’t imagine what it would be like as a trans person to spend 3/4 of this book having a good time only to encounter the hateful mess towards the end. It was disrespectful and derogatory and I won’t be continuing the series as I had planned. I can’t understand why none of the reviews I’ve seen have mentioned this either. I wish I could give it zero stars!!!

[Lois · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yikes this was cute until the transphobia towards the end.
Probably finished with this author

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started off liking this book and it's characters but half way through the book they were really getting on my nerves. By the end of the book I was sorry more of them hadn't been murdered. The plot was goofy and mystery almost none existent.

[Lisa Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ashbury Heights Victorian, near San Francisco, California


View of church up near Stanyan and Fulton.


★★★★☆ (This is a review of the audiobook.) I just love Ms. Davis’ clever Sophie Katz Murder Mystery series, but I’ve never heard one of her books on audio. I have this one in paperback and hadn’t gotten around to reading it. Alas, then audible.com had a sale. Eep!

Gabra Zackman does a nice job reading this one, doing a great job differentiating the voices. I liked Sophie Kate’s Private Investigator boyfriend, Anatoly Darinsky’s voice, with his sexy Russian accent. However, I did up the speed from 1X to 1.25X because she was reading just a tad slow for me.

Despite the return of Sophie’s ex and her family issues, I wouldn’t quite call this ‘chick-lit’ as the fourth installment of Sophie’s escapades is full of mystery, humor, and suspense. There are plenty of plot twists, unique secondary characters, and the right touch of romance... and, yes, sensual scenes...

But, whoa, baby. All I can say is there are ghosts, and then there are ghosts! I consider Sophie smart and quite witty; however, I’m with Anatoly: no way in hell would I stay in that house! LOL!

[Heidi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rating would’ve been a 3 or perhaps even a 4 if not for the tasteless, obnoxious, awful transphobia that drives the plot forward toward the end. Very disappointed in this book.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
I continue to get a lot of enjoyment listening to this series on my commute. I used to read these kinds of books all the time, and it's making me feel nostalgic.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be a great beach/pool read for mystery lovers. This is the 4th in a series of mysteries by Kyra Davis but you can begin with this one and pick up the others later. Divorcee Sophie Katz lives in San Francisco and loves her designer coffee. She also loves Victorian houses and is going to be able to purchase one--not because she can afford it but because her ex-a sleazy realator thinks he can get it for her "at a steal." However, the house comes with conditions attached and Sophie loves the perfect house so much she agrees to the stipulations.

The house Sophie is in love with belongs to Kane Crammer--and he requires certain conditions of the new owner-to-be. Sophie must join the San Francisco Specter Society and attend their regularly scheduled seances used to communicate with certain departed souls.
Sophie has problems to deal with--not only is her new house haunted but she keeps turning up at the site of several murders.

Sophie's current boyfriend, Anatoly Darinsky, is a PI, who is by her side in solving the murders in this book and attempting to put the ghosts "to rest" that haunt her new house. He is hired by Maria, the wife of newly murdered Enrico, in a locked-door mystery.

The supporting characters are fun-- Leah, her organized sister "Leah didn't like things she couldn't control" (p.50),her sexy friend, Dena, always ready for a romantic adventure and even feline Mr. Katz who has hair that stands on end at appropriate moments.

Sophie is living in the house (and it is all but hers) when escrow goes through in a couple of weeks. Sophie hears stomps, furniture is rearranged, a crooked picture hanging is righted--
What is going on--I'll never tell.

I love the alliteration in the title of this book--
also each chapter has a catchy subtitle -- "There are men worth dying for and others who really just need to die." Chapter 1, page 9.

A fun, fast read--I will add these to my series of mystery books.

[Gemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILERS: I started really liking this book, and was feeling like it might be my favourite, but ended up getting quite annoyed at the main character being a pretty shitty person just to get a good deal on a house. Could not get behind the basic greed inherent in the storyline, and that sounds very moralising, but I dunno, it just didn’t sit right with me. It only ended up being okay that she was being completely deceitful in order to profit because the others were such shitty people too. Honestly I hated that house so much by the end that I was really hoping it would get burnt down. I also really didn’t like the trans twist plot point, and I could see that the writer was trying to not be transphobic, but it really was still transphobic. It was just so unnecessary. Stop using trans people as red herrings, or as jokes on men’s masculinity, or as gotcha devices. At least there was an emphasis that trans women are women, and that the trans woman wasn’t the villain, but that is a pretty low bar to pass even for a book written when this one was. Even at the end, the book made a note of the ‘masculine hands’ that rescue Sophie. Ffs, why does it need to be noted? That was just a cheap trick at trans peoples expense, and that’s just one aspect of how the book continually did that in the final quarter. So yeah - that made me go off the book even more. I would have given it three stars if the transphobic storyline stuff wasn’t there. Was kind of hoping that Scott might stay and show everyone’s transphobic jokes to be misplaced, but that would have been out of character as he was halfway out the door anyway. Happy to have gotten Jason back, I did actually miss him. Haha!

[Thereadingbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divorcee Sophie Katz lives in San Francisco and loves her designer coffee. She also loves Victorian houses and is going to be able to purchase one not because she can afford it but because her ex-a sleazy realtor thinks he can get it for her "at a steal." The house comes with conditions attached and Sophie loves the perfect house so much she agrees to the stipulations.

The house Sophie is in love with belongs to Kane Crammer and he requires certain conditions of the new owner. Sophie must join the San Francisco Specter Society and attend their regularly scheduled seances used to communicate with certain departed souls.
Sophie has problems to deal with not only is her new house haunted but she keeps turning up at the site of several murders.

Sophie's current boyfriend, Anatoly Darinsky, is a PI, who is by her side in solving the murders in this book and attempting to put the ghosts "to rest" that haunt her new house. He is hired by Maria, the wife of newly murdered Enrico, in a locked-door mystery.

I am off to read book 5 to this series. I have enjoyed it so much so far.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have really enjoyed this series up to now but this book did not work for me at all.

I feel like all the characters in this book were just annoying the beejezus out of me. Every character acted dumb and foolish and just in ways that made me shake my head and go: "Really?!".

This one just did not work for me at all. This was a DNF.

[Alison Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Irresistible - sexy, funny and diverting!

[Kathy Temean · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good who done it mystery with supernatural elements.

[Rashay Liedecke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one bites the dust. On to the next chapter in the series.

[Kat, lover of bears... · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an awesome haunted house mystery. This is the kind of story that is believable and not an author's attempt to believe in something the way she believes we should see it. So many twists, turns, and characters doing bad things that it was more tricky figuring out who the actual killer was. I love how Sophie and Anatoly's relationship is maturing in a loving, fun and beautiful way.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sophie Katz strikes gold in this mystery/women's lit thriller. The author, Kyra Davis, kept me guessing right up until the very end with twists and turns along the way! This novel is Davis' best, by far, mixing themes of mystery, romance, family and non-stop action.

5 exuberant stars!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good grief, these are funny! They tide me over until the next Stephanie Plum novel comes out. Highly recommended for anyone who's an Evanovich junkie.

[Janina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anatoly makes my mouth water.

[K.Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really enjoying it, right up until it got weirdly transphobic. That arc was completely out of place and the use of transphobic slurs left a bad taste in my brain.

[Genia · Rating 2 out of 5]

the book was ok, not the best but not bad. Then it became transphobic which was totally unexceptable. Definetly not continuing with this serues

[Beth Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A product of it's time, like the rest of the series. I definitely think this story would be different if written even just a few years later than it was. The whole issue with the trans character was a bit heavy handed, but at the same time, I liked the fact that they did not just automatically assume the trans character was good or bad. If written today, auto good might well be the case. I've seen reviews complaining about the handling and vilification of that character. My response to those is to remind everyone that 10 or 15 years ago when this was written, this was not nearly as common an issue. Like being gay in earlier decades, being trans at that time was something that someone would be far more private about. Add in any kind of psychological issue, and they could easily become violently protective of themselves. Read it again. They vilified her for her character and her actions, not for being trans. And jokes made about 'please let tell ....' were aimed at the other person's probable judgement and reaction, again, not at the trans character and not simply because they were trans.
All that being said, the story was alright. Parts were needlessly complicated. And parts had me saying, "Just talk to the guy." But that is part of the series.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my fourth book that I've read by this author. I usually enjoy her writing and her character Sophie Katz and the others in this series. I did have one dnf but no idea when I read it or my review since it didn't get imported to Goodreads from Shelfari 9 years ago. Too bad because I'd like to see what I didn't like about that one since I've enjoyed her others so far. I have one left on my shelf in this series. I need to find one more and that's the end of the series.

She buys a "haunted" house in Haight Ashbury from her real estate ex-husband who she happens to meet at an open house for another house and he tells her about this house. The house has clauses per the owner's son. She holds seances and doesn't even believe in ghosts. Or does she after hearing things. Then she get embroiled into another murder situation of course. Her boyfriend Anatoly is there at the time and helps and tells her to stay out of it once again.

I got halfway through and was deciding whether to finish it since it wasn't very interesting, and sure enough that's when I decided to stop. I was bored and wasn't sure if I could keep on reading to the end. Life's too short to finish a book no matter how far you are into it.

[Aubrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was way, way over the top on the dramatics, and way underwhelming on the character development.

All of Sophie's quirks that I found charming in the first couple of books I'm now finding extremely tedious. The thing is, I like that Sophie is headstrong, hyper-focused, and quirky. But I don't like that she isn't growing as a character at all.

Over and over again, Sophie makes decisions and involves herself in things that are extremely dangerous. She always makes it through just by the skin of her teeth somehow. Which is all fine and dandy - you can't have a book series without the heroine - but her penchant for self-destruction is getting a little stale.

I wish I could see the same character growth in Sophie as I'm seeing in everyone else. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

Overall, this book threw me. The mystery wasn't as transparent as the last one, and there was a whole new level of drama that I certainly wasn't anticipating. I did quite enjoy this book - I'm a sucker for all kinds of mysteries - but Sophie needs to grow up a little for me to have the same love I had for the first book going forward.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason I never read this one when it first came out, but I am currently doing a Sophie Katz marathon and reading all of them to see how they hold up. I've mentioned before the many, many dated references to pop culture that people won't understand now (in 2023), which is a bummer because the plots are pretty great. That said, Sophie as a character isn't growing and changing that much and I'm not sure how compelling another four books of her inane shenanigans will be. Also, this book has a trans character and it's pretty jarring, even though I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt because this was written over 10 years ago. When the characters cannot wait to tell the sexist asshole that he's dating a trans woman, I just cringed, because omg omg omg won't that be HILARIOUS and not at all potentially life threatening to her (eyeroll). For the time period, the character is handled well enough... Sophie states that trans women are women, the trans woman is not the villain per se, but there's a slight transphobia that colors my enthusiasm for this book, unfortunately.

[Sunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a rule, Sophie Katz thinks there’s nothing worse than getting a call from her realtor ex-husband. Except, of course, when he introduces her to the new love of her life: an old Victorian mansion for a seemingly dirt-cheap price.

Unfortunately for her, getting this house is going to take a little extra effort.

(Discovering a dead body, joining the SFSS (San Francisco Specter Society), dealing with her ex’s malicious girlfriend.. you know, the usual.)

At this point, there’s not much that I can say about these books that I haven’t said in previous reviews. All I have to add is that they’re still enjoyable. This one differentiated from the others by talking about the protagonist’s backstory more (her deceased father/ex-husband being introduced as a character).

(Kind of a nice coincidence that I read it in October, what with it having “spooky” themes.)

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been my least favorite of the Sophie Katz books--although that's like saying it's my least favorite kind of chocolate. It was still great. I just had trouble understanding Sophie's attachment to the house, considering all that happened. I couldn't relate to her overwhelming need for the house, even with the connection to her father. That being said, I love a good ghost story/haunted house book, Anatoly is as sexy and infuriating as ever, and Sophie and her friends consistently make me laugh.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the prose was funny and clever, Ms. Davis has a knack for writing the witty responses and puns, the plot had twists that went nowhere which lengthened a storyline beyond my attention at times. While this is certainly a beach read, and I may go back to the start of the series--it will be only when I have time to kill. The story doesn't take itself too seriously so that makes it a fun quick read. At this time, I still like Stephanie Plum more than Sophie, but I think I need to revisit at a later date.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book to escape the Corona virus pandemic woes for a little while. There is mystery in a quirky, mad-cap, romantic way. The awkward spots Sophie Katz finds herself in remind me of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum character. I like a story with a slight ghost story element whether “real” or all part of the twist. There were a few places the storyline went that I wish it hadn’t but I have definitely found a new series to work my way through. I just wish I had started out with the first book because I spoiled myself for the beginning by reading this one first.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sophie is in the market for a house and wouldn’t you know it, her ex husband has just the place! There’s just one catch: the owner died and his son wants Sophie to contact his dead mother if she still wants to buy.

Here’s what I didn’t like: some of the editing was off with commas. Transphobic views.

Here’s what I liked: this was a standalone novel. I didn’t need to read the ones before to understand what was going on. It was an easy to read cozy.

Overall it was fun but a damn shame about the transphobia.

[Rachel Consoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books are just good, plain, smutty fun. I liked the plot a bit more in this one and the mystery was more exciting. Also happy that, for the most part, Sophie and Anatoly seemed to have put aside their petty crap and just be happy which is really nice for future books. A good, fun ride as always!

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 4th installment of the sophie Katz series. It was another great one! There was some mild transphobic moments but it didn't really take away from the story and I don't feel like it was meant how it sounded. You need to read the others in the series before you take on this one. Im looking forward to getting book 5 soon!