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A.R. Winters

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Innocent in Las Vegas: A Humorous Tiffany Black Mystery (Tiffany Black Mysteries Book 1) Kindle Edition

by A.R. Winters (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 20,103 ratings

Book 1 of 37: Tiffany Black Mysteries

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A Cupcakes-And-Crime Caper

Cupcake-loving croupier Tiffany Black is one step away from getting her Private Investigator license, and has her eye on the prize.

"Winters will have you giggling into your book!"

Accepting her first real case - investigating the murder of casino-mogul Ethan Becker - should be exciting. Instead, things spiral out of control and Tiffany finds herself in over her head, as she confronts secretive suspects, corrupt casino henchmen and a bodyguard with a mysterious past.

Tiffany's poker-hustling Nanna and pushy parents want her to find a nice man and settle down, but Tiffany just wants to track down the real murderer before he finds her first...

This is a laugh-out-loud, clean cozy mystery featuring a strong female protagonist, some unusual friends and family, and a mystery that needs solving! It has no graphic gore, bad language or explicit love scenes.

Praise for A.R. Winters:

"You fall in love with Tiffany Black from the start, and the mystery starts immediately" - Melissa Greenberg, Amazon.com Top 1000 Reviewer

"The perfect balance of being lighthearted, but still a serious page-turning mystery." - Jaycie D, Amazon.com

"A fun cozy mystery with engaging and entertaining characters" - lq, Amazon.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The perfect balance of being lighthearted, but still a serious page-turning mystery." - Jaycie D, Amazon.com
"What a delightful book for a relaxing read... The mystery starts immediately... and before you know it, you're laughing out loud on your commute and people are looking at you funny... " - Melissa Greenberg, Amazon.com Top 1000 Reviewer

About the Author

A.R. Winters loves books, TV series and movies about mysteries, crime capers and heists. She also enjoys a good laugh, so she writes lighthearted, humorous mysteries.
When not writing, she's usually eating too much cake.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00F0QWBNS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ (September 5, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 5, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2197 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 217 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #14,089 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #32 in Cozy Culinary Mysteries
- #55 in Cozy Culinary Mystery
- #130 in Amateur Sleuth Mysteries (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 20,103 ratings

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To download two ★FREE★ books by A.R. Winters, just copy and paste: http://bit.ly/freecozybooks

Enjoy!

A.R. Winters is a cozy mystery writer who loves writing about crazy characters and vibrant locations. And food, lots of delicious food!

When not writing, A.R. Winters is usually busy eating too much cake.

You can also find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arwintersauthor

Customer reviews

4 out of 5

20,103 global ratings

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Bekah Graham

Nice read

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2024

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I am happy I found this book. I love Nanna! She is a hoot! It was s good mystery. I didn't see it coming. I liked the quickness of the read. The writing is good, story is good. I hope Tiffany has many more adventures!

Helpful

Melissa and Josh

I finally got around to reading it and thought it was pretty good. Thankfully so

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2018

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This was an e-book that I'd had for a few years now, just sitting and waiting for me to read on my tablet. Well, I finally got around to reading it and thought it was pretty good. Thankfully so, since the last few e-books I've read weren't that good.

I did notice several grammatical errors throughout the story, but thankfully, they weren't that distracting to the story itself. Although there was one error that was repeatedly used that somewhat annoyed me. For whatever reason, the author would say "no one" as "no-one." I have no clue why she thought a dash/hyphen was needed between these words. Overall, this was a cute story, and I'd have to say that my favorite character was Nanna, she was a hilarious old lady.

Questions/Comments:

I didn't get why Tiffany thought her name sounded like a stripper name? An '80s valley girl? Yes.

There's a part when Tiffany is reminiscing about her Nanna. She ends up thinking about how "...she moved here a few years ago to live with her daughter...," wouldn't that have been Tiffany's mother? Just a strange way to phrase it.

Tiffany ends up stabbing "Mr. Beard" in the neck with her stiletto heel: "It went through his flesh...Blood gushed out..." Why did she never consider that she may have killed him? Why did she never report it to the police?

Stone is explaining to Tiffany how she can lose someone if she's being tailed. He starts off by saying that there might be a car ahead of her (who's watching her direction), as well as one OR two cars behind her. Obviously, he simplifies his directions. "So take a turn to throw off the car ahead..." (why would someone be ahead when the person being tailed could easily turn a different direction)? "...then lose the CARS behind you in local streets..." (because that's easy to do), "...then get back on the expressway...By the time you do this, you'll only have one car on your tail." How would she have one car if she lost them in the local streets?

Females are always expected to settle down, get married and have lots of babies, as is the case with Tiffany. Nothing surprising there. Yet, when she takes Stone to her parents' house for dinner, instead of saying he was a good friend, why didn't she say he was something like a coworker? She knew her family's thoughts on her finding a guy. That whole situation was a bit much because she could have easily made it nonexistent had she used her brain.

For dessert, her mother made chocolate lava cake (is that all Tiffany eats? Cakes?) Anyways, Tiffany thinks how "she couldn't possibly stuff any more cake into my stomach," how big was her lava cake? Those are usually pretty small.

When did Mcdonald's ever serve slices of apple pie?

"I did feel a bit naive, but how was I supposed to know which interviews a CEO deems worthy of his time?" Well considering she's been working in the casinos for a good while, you'd think she would have known this already or at least a general idea. Why would a CEO, in general, interview a dealer (someone that every casino has multiples of)?

When Tiffany is fighting with Vanessa, it's described as Tiffany being on top. "I felt her kick me and try to push me off." So, obviously, Vanessa's legs aren't flat on the ground/more like they're bunched up in front of her, and Tiffany's body is on top of them. "...she kneed me in the stomach..." How would that have been possible? Whether her legs were flat on the ground, she couldn't have kneed Tiffany in the stomach, or if they were bunched in front of her (her legs would be bent), I still don't see how that would have been possible.

I never understood why Sophia had hired Tiffany in the first place when Stone was right there, and obviously she and Stone were still on good terms.

As someone mentioned in their review, this story did make me think of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series.

14 people found this helpful

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Toni Walker

Interesting with loads of potential!

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2019

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I thought this book was interesting and had a lot of potential. I do wish it had been fleshed out a bit more. It wasn’t really clear why Tiffany was such a lover of cupcakes and why that addiction mattered to the storyline. Most of the covers in this series have cupcakes on them so I was just curious as to the why of it all. And maybe it was just because she liked them and met a man in her building who was a former pastry chef who liked to bake for his friends.

Before the book began, Tiffany’s family was already wondering why she wasn’t practically shacked up with a man named Stone and that kinda threw me. Then, almost after her initial meeting with Officer Nick three-fourths of the way through the book, Stone wanted to know if she liked him. That must have been an insta-karmic connection and how Stone found out about it so fast is anyone's guess. Things just seemed to happen too fast for me. I understand that this book is only 200 pages but these characters are interesting, the plot had some meat to it and it really could have been a great book. I am hopeful that other books in the series develop things more and bring out a 4 or 5 star rating from me. Cross your fingers for me.

7 people found this helpful

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F. M.M.

A Fun Series, including the next series featuring Tiffany Black

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024

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Recommend, lighthearted mysteries series' (there are more than one), likable
characters, entertaining, set in sunny Las Vegas. I am now into the 2nd series,
Tiffany Black cases.

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2024

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Didn't really know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised by the style and the story
I think Tiffany is fun and smart and she definitely needs to eat more healthy food 😁

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2024

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The book reminded me a bit of a Sue Grafting model but different. Really fast read and lots of action. I liked it

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Sharon E. Leighton

Enjoyable if given a chance to stand on its own

Reviewed in Canada on June 3, 2016

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While obviously inspired by Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, this book was not just another failed take-off of a successful author. Tiffany is saner than Stephanie. Her pushy mother is pushy in a different way; her vivacious grandmother is eccentric but not wildly so; the appealing ex-CIA man who helps her out is somehow less sexy and more loveable. One might say that Winters used the Plum books as a template, but used her own colours for filling it in. I should also mention that the humor is more subtle; if you come to this expecting the wild, laugh-out-loud craziness of the Plum novels, you will be disappointed. If you come without expectations, you will probably enjoy it. As a private investigator who's still in training, Tiffany makes some blunders, but she does figure out the mystery, and manages to share something of life in Las Vegas in the process.

This book earned its fourth star for using good English, well-constructed sentences, good spelling, and good word choice. It was obviously proofread - I think there were a couple of minor typos that got by them, but that's all. I find it adds greatly to my enjoyment of a book if I don't have to rewrite every other sentence, as often happens with Amazon freebies (which this one was). There was very little bad language, no pornographic sex scenes, and no more violence than is essential to a murder mystery.

I think the author was ill-advised in making the book's debt to Evanovich so obvious, as that tends to set up certain expectations. And let's face it, there's only one Janet Evanovich. However, once those expectations are dropped, the book turns out to be quite enjoyable.

2 people found this helpful

David Cranson

Recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2015

Verified Purchase

Brilliant. A chuckle is guaranteed every now and again. Not laugh out loud funny all the way through, and a good vein of humour running all the way through. A well built and told storyline. Good characters, and very little - if any - swearing. This is the first in a series and I have to admit that I cannot wait to read some more.

The only thing 'against' it as such is that it was too short. I don't usually like l o n g books, but this one was a little on the short side.

I'm looking forward to the building main character(s) and hope that the fast pace and well written scenes and characters continue. Good if you like a well written and not too heavy crime caper.

Lightweight it may be, but it is certainly very satisfying.

One person found this helpful

Liz245

Good read.

Reviewed in France on May 31, 2015

Verified Purchase

I downloaded this book because it was free and found it well written and entertaining. Definitely worth downloading to find out more about the cup cake eating P.I. I would definitely recommend.

One person found this helpful

tiziana

Not too hilarious, but interesting!

Reviewed in Italy on March 17, 2015

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I wouldn’t describe this mystery as “hilarious”, I’d rather call it “interesting” and quite “serious”.
Tiffany works as a dealer in a casino but she wants to become a private investigator. She hasn’t got her private investigator licence yet when she is asked to take on a case, which is not straightforward at all! She accepts: it is a great chance and nobody is willing to look into the case. Investigating the case, she risks her life and for her safety she agrees, reluctantly, to take self-defence lessons and applies to get a gun permit. There are some hilarious moments too, thanks to Nanna and Tiffany’s mum, who want Tiffany to settle down and get married. They continue pestering her with questions about her love-life, which, actually, doesn’t exist!
This mystery keeps you in suspense until the last chapters, when Tiffany succeeds in solving the mystery (or, better, the mysteries!). She is really cut out to be a private investigator.
A good, enjoyable read.

An Avid Reader

What's not to like?

Reviewed in Australia on February 13, 2015

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The many reviews of this book compare this book both favourably and unfavourably with the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. In my ignorance I went and read the blurbs and reviews for some of the Stephanie Plum books. They sounded a lot more hard-edged and graphic than this light-hearted read. Though Tiffany Black is a PI, not a bounty hunter, there did seem to be significant similarities in various characters.

Be that as it may, just be aware that I review in my blissful ignorance and take this as it stands and not as an imitation of anyone else. That being got out of the way, I thought this was absolutely delightful. Trainee PI Tiffany Black is hilariously inept, has never held a gun and refuses to think of taking self-defence classes until things get a bit dangerous.

Through a friend she gains a stoic (but gorgeous looking) minder in the aptly named Stone, an imperturbable man of few words and extraordinarily literal understanding, and shadowy background. So sexy. Stone in his wordlessly efficient way is able to corral Tiffany into makin’ it real by essaying gun use and self-defence training – simply it seems by looking incredulous that she hasn’t already done so. So Tiffany stumbles through her first investigation, solving the case apparently almost by accident.

Her family misunderstand her in a way to guarantee maximum amusement, her granny is a naughty old lady, and they all want her respectably married off, like, five years ago. When Stone hauls into their view, well, it’s on isn’t it? A perfect running gag that is milked for all it’s worth but doesn’t run out of steam.

Well written, fun characters, witty dialogue that never flags, suspenseful mystery and lotsa laughs. What’s not to like?

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Innocent in Las Vegas: A Humorous Tiffany Black Mystery (Tiffany Black Mysteries Book 1) Kindle Edition

A Cupcakes-And-Crime Caper

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