Homicide and Old Lace by Dolores Johnson Narrator: Emily Ellet
Series: Mandy Dyer #5
Published by Brilliance Audio on June 17, 2025
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Length: 9 hrs
Pages: 280
Format: Audiobook
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A dry cleaner-turned-amateur sleuth investigates her ex-husband when his new wife-to-be turns up dead in this cozy mystery.
There’s nothing unusual about a young bride entrusting Mandy Dyer with her wedding dress. Mandy runs a dry cleaners—her customers bring in gowns all the time. But when Mandy realizes the bride-to-be is marrying her womanizing ex-husband, she sees red—especially when she discovers the bride stabbed to death in her bridal suite. With Larry as the prime suspect, Mandy is up to her neck in her ex’s dirty laundry once more. Only this time, the stink of it is even worse. Putting her sleuthing skills to use, Mandy is determined to make sure that whoever killed this innocent woman gets their just desserts. And Mandy most certainly doesn’t mean wedding cake . . .
I didn’t realize this was the 5th in the series when I picked it up, but it worked well as a stand-alone. Mandy, the owner of a dry cleaning shop, apparently has a habit of getting involved in murders. This time she has agreed to clean and alter her ex-husband’s new bride’s wedding dress. But when she delvers it to the hotel on the day of the wedding, she ends up a suspect in the bride’s murder. Being the amateur sleuth that she is, she decides she has to get to the bottom of it, even if her boyfriend, Detective Stan Foster, wants her to stay far away.
We’ve got plenty of suspects, clues, and red herrings. The people surrounding Mandy are appropriately quirky, especially her mom and her employee, Betty, who get in all kind of trouble. I did get annoyed at how often Betty was described as a former bag lady and not listened to. Like, yes, I get it, she used to be a bag lady, but she seemed pretty loyal to Mandy and eager to help. Mandy seems to think she herself is the only capable, intelligent person
The whodunnit wasn’t surprising, but there was enough misdirection to keep things interesting. Mandy, of course, puts it all together in the end. And the book even leaves us with a clothes cleaning tip.
I listened to the audio and the narrator did a good job. She made each character distinct and made the chaos believable.
About Dolores Johnson
Dolores Johnson is a journalist and the editor of American Drycleaner magazine. She is the author of the Mandy Dyer mysteries. She lives in Aurora, Colorado, where she is at work on her next novel.
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