Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things

Carrie Carlin #1

by Nancy Tesler

Carrie Carlin is trying to juggle single life in the suburbs, two frisky children, and a full-time career as a biofeedback technician. Through it all she's got to stand by while her estranged husband flaunts his new, young, gorgeous fiancée, Erica. When Erica turns up dead, Carrie -- the jealous ex-wife -- becomes a prime suspect. But while Carrie certainly wished her replacement dead, she can't quite convince the police that she didn't actually do it. Now the suburban single mom is on the run, finding out shocking secrets about her ex, her friends, and even her patients -- as a killer visualizes her...

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Ebooks, Suspense, Amazon

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Nancy Tesler started as an actor, progressed to writing screen and stage plays, and then, inspired by the overwhelming urge to do someone in, moved on to writing mysteries about the murderously wacky world of divorce.

Nancy Tesler was born and raised in Worcester, Mass., and moved with her family to New York City when she was eighteen. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a major in drama, she toured France with a production of "Born Yesterday."

She acted in films, television and off-Broadway theater until the birth of her first child. She then began writing for the stage, television and the financial community. In the early 1990s she became certified as a biofeedback clinician and works with adults having pain or stress-related conditions and children with attention deficit disorders.

Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things introduced Carrie Carlin, biofeedback clinician and almost-divorced mom, whose already stressful life becomes nightmarish when her soon-to-be-ex's intended turns up dead, with Carrie topping the suspect list. Carrie's fifth adventure, Slippery Slopes & Other Deadly Things, was published in April 2003 by Perseverance Press/John Daniel & Co.

Reviews

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Carrie Carlin is a biofeedback technician who is in the middle of a divorce from her husband of eighteen years who left her for a model that worked at his company. When she visits her old house and overhears the new fiance Erica discussing her five thousand dollar wedding dress she gets upset and rushes off only to be pulled over for speeding.

When hearing the next day that Erica was murdered Carrie gets a visit from the same detective that had pulled her over. When she finds herself becoming a suspect Carrie begins to investigate Erica's murder on her own.

This book was alright really I just couldn't really find myself getting too into the story as Carrie's therapy time kind of bored me a bit. The oh my gosh this woman is an over-eater at 150lbs and a few others things was really kind of a turn off and found those areas of the story a bit boring. Not to mention that often it seemed Carrie should be a patient instead of helping others with some of her frantic behavior.

Overall, wasn't a fan of the main character but I'm sure others would enjoy this cozy mystery.

[Laurie Armstrong · Rating 2 out of 5]

The victim is the the perfectly proportioned soon-to-be wife of Carrie's soon-to-be-ex-husband. And while Carrie, certainly wishes her replacement is dead, she can't quite convince the police that she didn't actually do it.

I found this story to be rather non believable in the way that Carrie seemed to take investigation into her own hands. She found herself in precarious and sometimes incriminating situations but she was never held accountable.

Nancy Tesler was recommended but I didn't enjoy this book. Maybe I need to try one of her newer ones.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pros: It’s a quick read, so at least I only wasted about 3.5 hours of my life on it.

Cons: The writing in this book is just not good, with liberal use of stereotypes and an almost incomprehensible plot. I almost put the book down when a character referred to an Arabic doorman as “Ali Baba over there”, but kept reading so I can discuss it with my book club. I wish I hadn’t.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprisingly good story, and I look forward to delving more into the Carrie Carlin mysteries!

[Alexandra Lundgren · Rating 1 out of 5]

couldn't even finish the book , lost interest

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am rather surprised to say that I enjoyed this book very much. I'm surprised, because I got this one for free from Amazon for my Kindle. It's the rare freebie book that I've read that hasn't been riddled with problems. So I was very happily surprised to find that this was a "hidden gem." :-)

I enjoyed it because the characters were great, the situations realistic and suspenseful, and the mystery kept me guessing. :-)

Now that I know how it ended and who the killer was, I had to do a search to see if "pink balloons" were mentioned early/earlier in the story and I - clueless as I am - missed the connection to the title and "other deadly things." But no, they weren't mentioned until the end. So I am relieved that I DON'T have to feel dumb for missing the obvious. There wasn't anything to miss. :-)

I have to say that I figured the murderer had to be one of Carrie's biofeedback patients, as we didn't really meet anyone else it could be. But I was kept guessing as to who it could be (Ruth-Ann? Vickie? Someone else?) right up until the gun was pulled. :-)

(Please note that I'm the sort of oblivious reader who doesn't tend to notice things until the gun is smoking, in this case almost literally. So it - meaning the identity of the murderer - could have been telegraphed earlier, but I don't think it was.)

I enjoyed this book so much that I think I'm going to look for the next book in this series and buy it for my Kindle. It's the rare Kindle book I pay money for, but this series might just have to go on that short list. ;-)

[Tulay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy reading.

Husband left her and two children at Christmas night for another younger woman. One of many he cheated. She moved out of their house, she moved in, and killed in the swimming pool. Carrie is therapist, but she is the one that needs therapy badly.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book! A lot of fun! I love the main character!

[moongirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I typically read more romance books so when I picked this one up I was skeptical if I would be able to get pulled in. However I was very satisfied with the storyline, writing style and characters of this story.

I really enjoyed this read and I was on the edge of my seat while reading this! 🤍 I adore this author and love her books.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly entertaining

The blurb on this book sounded good, so I picked it up. I thought it was very well done. Lots of twists and turns and unexpected surprises. Can recommend this. I will be getting into the next book right away.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. While Carrie is reeling from the recent divorce from her cheating husband and his engagement to a much younger coworker, the fiancé turns up murdered. So does her husband's secretary. Although considered a suspect at first, she works to prove her innocence as well as find the killer.

[Joanne Cheek · Rating 1 out of 5]

How I finished this, is mind boggling. First off, the author used God’s name in vain throughout the entire book. Secondly, who could care for an abusive, cheating husband like Rich.

I would NOT recommend this book to anyone.

[Barb Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pink Balloons

I really enjoyed this book. If it hadn't been such a busy week I would have read it in one sitting! The story has lots of twists and characters and I never got close to guessing "who done it". Great mystery.

[VickiLee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lively and engaging book with a delightful sense of humour.

[Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suspenseful and scary.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute

Very fast paced, easy read. A little more saccharine than my normal mystery reads. There was a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carrie Carlin is a therapist of sorts whose life lately isn’t too great, but she keeps pushing on anyway. She is trying to adjust to her new office, which she just started up on her own, and she is trying to get used to her new house and being a single Mom after a divorce from her husband blindsides her. Her children are just as confused about the divorce as she is to tell the truth. Carrie has no idea what went wrong in her marriage to warrant a divorce, well, besides the young, perky, and stunningly gorgeous Erica who works with her husband Rich. Erica starts working for Rich and there seem to be more business meetings and trips than there used to be that take Rich away from home and at work late. Carrie, being the scorned and hurt wife, of course isn’t thrilled with the idea of Rich moving on to Erica, but what can she do? Then she finds out from Allie, her daughter, that Rich is marrying Erica! Not happy is an understatement about how Carrie feels about that. She goes over to watch Erica use HER house and HER furniture and HER pool and is made to feel even worse after watching her and hearing her talk to Rich about the wedding and the costs of things. Feeling beyond depressed Carrie heads to her car to go home and is stopped by an old neighbor on the way and asked what she is doing, and to make her feel even worse her car dies. True Carrie wished Erica dead and may have said a few rude things about how she would kill her before she would let her marry Rich, but she wouldn’t really do it. When Erica turns up dead…murdered…guess who’s at the top of the list? Yup, Carrie. How can Carrie prove she didn’t kill Erica? She decides to do some investigating of her own to prove it, but when you are digging around for “dirt” on people, you find many secrets to sift through. Can Carrie find the real killer before she is charged for a crime she didn’t commit? Can Carrie rebuild her reputation again from suspected murderer if she does find the real killer? Can Carrie concentrate on anything when the more she digs the more secrets she finds out about her friends and family? And how can she do anything with that hunky homicide cop hanging around her? All Carrie does know for certain is that she better find answers and quick because things aren’t looking so good for her if she can’t. Even her son is starting to doubt her and her patients are starting to leave her.

This book reminded me of a pig’s tail, it had so many twists and turns in it! The plot was a great one and one that could easily happen, a scorned soon to be ex wife accused of murdering the soon to be new wife of her ex husband. CLASSIC! This is one therapist who teaches relaxation and dealing with life who is going to start to need her own professional services to cope with all the accusations happening in her life now. I loved the plotline, but thought some of the characters could have been more developed…like Ted, the police officer who is in charge of the investigation and has a soft spot forming for Carrie. Carrie and Rich, the two main characters (soon to be ex hubby and wife) were well portrayed and developed though. I really felt like I knew Carrie and Rich by the end of the book. I got to know Ted, Meg, and Carrie’s kids, but I would have liked them to have been a bit more developed than there were. I got the feeling though that more would come in the next book though, so maybe that is what the author is shooting for here to keep you reading on in the series. I really was convinced that it was a set person who was murdering the women in Rich’s life and it looked like I may have been right….until the last chapter. Then a HUGE “didn’t see that coming” moment happened and the killer comes to be known. This was an easier read and a quick read. It had good characters and a well thought out plot and was well written. I would recommend this read to any mystery reader who wants an easy to read through mystery with lots of twists.

4/5 Stars!!

[Judie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forty-year-old Carrie Burnham Carlin was a biofeedback specialist. Her husband Rich walked out on her and their two pre-teen children, Matt and Allie, to take up with beautiful, surgically enhanced, twenty-eight year old Erica. With both Carrie and Rich’s divorce and Erica and Rich’s wedding coming up very soon, Carrie decided to drive by her former house on the way home from her office. She got out of the car, walked around to the back through the neighbor’s yard (hidden in bushes) and saw Erica wearing one of Carrie’s necklaces. She and Rich were discussing the wedding plans. After hearing Erica refer to her as the “dragon lady,” she decides to leave, only to be stopped by Detective Sergeant Ted Brodsky for speeding.
The next day she heard over the radio that Erica had been murdered. Her body was found in the same location and dressed the same as she had been when Carrie saw her. The police officer remembered Carrie from the day before and she quickly became a suspect.
With the help of her friend, Meg, a former photographer and current café owner, Carrie tried to identify the killer. Her search took her meetings with several people connected with Rich including his secretary, Dot, and a former employee, Herb. A day later, one of them disappeared as did Rich. From another person she learned how much she did not know about Rich’s behavior.
Some of Carrie’s patients play important roles in the story in addition to interfering with her schedule because of requested emergency or cancelled appointments. Ruth-Ann, an orthodox Jew, is working on overcoming a rape. Carrie tells her, “You can’t change other people. Only how you react to them.” Vickie’s father emotionally abused her and she was looking for a father through promiscuity.
There are times when Tesler engages in some witty and clever wordplay. In one place, Carrie and Meg are seated in a car getting ready to speak to Herb. Meg warns her about the dangers she was facing. Carrie thought: “We set there in silence, the tension like a wall between us. She smoked and I fumed.”
Also part of her household are three cats, named for the three tenors, and a dog, Horty. After feeling betrayed by someone she had trusted, she went into the house and was greeted by Horty. Carrie thought, “Goddess did it right when She created dogs. If they love you, they love you for life. No trying to dig through lies and deceptions to figure out whether or not you deserve it. If you forget to feed them, they still love you. If you’re mad at the world and take it out on them, they forgive you. We could learn a lot from the canine species.”
The book had a satisfactory ending which I didn’t anticipate but was mostly logical. It was a quick read with some character development and good observations. It is the first in a series of five and I will consider reading others.
It provides a lot of information about what biofeedback is and how it works.
This book was a free Amazon download.

[Jeannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this series because I got the second book free from Amazon. The whole series is free through Kindleunlimited. The thing I found most interesting about this book is that the main character is a biofeedback specialist. I realized that is something I don't think I've ever seen done before, and I found the information about biofeedback really fascinating. In fact, it made me want to sign up for a session. The main character is also near my age, and I found her to be relatable. It was a quick read, and I 'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

[Leslie Rayborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story about a single, soon to be divorced mother turned amateur detective. After her husband's detestable fiance ends up topless and dead by the side of Carrie's old pool, she becomes a suspect and desperately tries to prove her innocence. But before she can manage this, other people from her former married life end up dead as well.

I finished this book pretty fast, and look forward to subsequent books in this series. I love that the main character Carries reads Janet Evanovich and drinks hot tea. She struggles to take her own advice that she gives to so many of her patients during their biofeedback sessions, especially when it comes to her husband of 18 years. If you are a jerk, cheating husband, this book is not for you. Jerk.

I did spend more of the book being totally confused as to how the title connects to the story. My husband asked me what I was reading last night when I was about 30 pages from the end and I said, "...but I have no idea why the book is called this." The "ah-ha!" moment doesn't come until the very end of the book, when the killer's identity is revealed.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a mystery thriller. I look forward to reading more of Nancy Tesler.

[Sheree Bonita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pink Balloons and Other Deadly Things was a decent read. It was free on Amazon for awhile and I decided to pick it up -- so to speak, since it's Kindle edition.

Nancy Tesler comes off as a feminist, but does a poor job executing that role. She insists on referring to God as Goddess, which really threw me off at first, yet makes her women extremely weak. Had Carrie and Meg been incredibly strong individuals, I would let the Goddess parts slip, but they're not. They rely on men throughout the entirety of the novel.

Regardless, it was a good mystery book. Dappled with grammatical errors throughout (some that really distracted) the book however flowed decently. Some parts seemed out of place, but easily passed off.

If it is still free on Amazon, I would recommend to pick it up. If it is over $3.00 I would pass and buy something with a little more substance.

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carrie Carlin is in the middle of a divorce from her husband Rich, when his fiancee is killed. Carrie is a suspect and looks into the murder. While Carrie is snooping to find evidence, she stumbles across the dead body of her husband's secretary. Carrie hasn't a clue who would kill these woman,but has finally come to the realization her husband is a liar and cheater most of their married life. Time for her to let go of the past and move forward into the future. Along the way, she finds Ted. A man she could grow to love. When Carrie comes face to face with the killer, she stunned to learn she knew the woman all along. And, who are her friends truly are. It gets a bit long winded in middle, then picks up again.

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A year after Carie's husband walked out on Christmas Eve, she is still trying to move on emotionally. Not long after "checking out" the new woman lounging around what used to be Carie's pool, in Carie's favorite lawn chair, wearing a necklace Carie was given, the new woman ends up face down in the half filled swimming pool. Enough people saw Carie in the neighborhood for her to become a very viable suspect.

As Carie realizes the need to find the real killer to keep herself out of the hot seat, she keeps stumbling upon kept secrets and dead bodies.

This is a great read. I found Carie to be a real woman with real hang ups, feelings, faults and foibles. I enjoyed this book so much that I am now about a quarter of the way through book #2.

[Kathryn Bain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good. There was no reason for the protagonist to be doing her own investigation, but that seems to be par with most cozies so I didn't hold that against her.

My largest problem with the book was all the description about her work. Ms. Tesler went into great detail on the protagonists job, but not into things that really mattered.

For instance, when the cop first held her hand. That was all that was written. There was no reaction by our heroine as to how she felt, yet we got a two pages of job description. That happened a couple of times in this book.

Over all, I would read another Tesler book just to see if the next one is better.

Light use of curse words and no sexual content.

[P.A. Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a great little quirky murder mystery with a bit of romance thrown in. Divorced but still bitter, Carrie takes a mad drive to her old house and spies on the new woman.

When the bimbo is found dead, Carrie is the number one suspect - well in her own mind anyway.

A trail of betrayals, real and imagined, takes Carrie on a journey to discover the real killer. There are plenty of suspects, and some of them end up victims too.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a twisty tale of murder, revenge, and spite.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me of Compromising Positions. When her estranged husband's finance is killed Carrie is shocked and possibly suspected by the local police. Sure Carrie wanted her dead, but she isn't guilty. She is going to have to play amateur sleuth to save her skin, and it turns out everyone has secrets that make them suspicious.

This book is set in an undisclosed time before the internet was omnipresent and cell phones were rare.

[Bonnie Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deadly patients

I have never read this author but I can say this will not be the last book by her that I will read. She already has me hooked on the next book in the series. I love a good mystery and this is one. I didn't,t figure out the killer till she revealed it in the book of course there is a little romance too. You wouldn't go wrong in reading this book if you enjoy a good mystery

[Linda Sirvio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I downloaded this free book to my Kindle because I thought the title sounded intriguing. After reading all the way through to the last chapter I finally figured out the reference to pink balloons. A thought perhaps I had missed an earlier mention in the book so I skimmed over the entire book but still found no mention of pink balloons until the last chapter. I liked the book but it seems misleading that the idea of the balloons wasn't presented earlier in the book.

[Connie Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprisingly enjoyable read. Looking at the author's bio it seems the Carrie Carlin character might be loosely based on the person of the author herself. Sometimes predictable there were just enough twists and turns to keep me from easily putting this down. I'll probably continue reading the "Other Deadly Things" series. I do wish we could give partial stars. I'd give this a 3.5.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an easy, quick read. The protagonist is a woman who had been dumped by her ex-husband and who is a person of interest in a murder. She begins to investigate herself as a form of self defense. It is formulaic, yet I didn't determine who the guilty person was until almost the conclusion. Not bad, fun reading.