The Missing Ink is a cozy mystery with bite. The premise and setting are promising, but I was not a big fan of the mystery itself.

One of my gripes with cozies is that the genre seems to always pull from the same pool of professions and settings. A cozy set in Las Vegas with a tattoo shop-owning protagonist immediately drew me in. I especially liked the way that Olson described Las Vegas and the business of the tattoo shop itself!

The reason why I'd say this is a cozy mystery with bite isn't because of the profession/setting combination, but rather, the way that the mystery is investigated. There is quite a bit of action in the book, particularly in the latter half, such that the book reads as a cozy thriller at points. I personally enjoy this style of book, but readers who'd like a very traditional cozy mystery may not care for this.

Unfortunately, I think the mystery was one of the weaker aspects of this book. The lives of many of the suspects are extremely intertwined together, making the mystery confusing to follow for me. I feel like I needed one of those corkboards with red string to help me connect all the dots!

This also made it difficult for me to care about the case. I found myself more invested in the protagonist and her shop than the mystery itself - which I feel is somewhat of a bad sign in a mystery novel.

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This was a fun read - tattoo shop owner (red hair!) in Vegas gets involved unwittingly (?) in a murder mystery and - surprise! - finds out who did it before her detective boyfriends finds out. I think I'll read the next in the series. ( )

This is a cozy genre mystery with a protagonist, Brett, who is a female tattoo artist and owns her own shop in Las Vegas. One seemingly normal day, a woman comes in and wants to get a devotion tattoo with the name Matt in it. But that woman never comes back, and soon she has been reported missing-and it turns out her fiance's name is Chip, not Matt. And that the name she gave to Brett wasn't her own name.

Brett gets entangled in the mystery, ends up on 20/20, and finds herself followed by a large bald man with an eagle tattooed on his neck. Throw in a cop for a brother, a handsome Englishman who may be hiding something, and an opulent themed casino, and you've got a fun, quick read that flies by.

Olson's characters occasionally ride on the fine line of being a stereotype, but she clearly loves tattoos and mysteries, and just reading the descriptions of all the amazing tattoos had me plotting my next one.

I would pick up this series again in the near future. ( )

Karen E Olson starts a new series with The Missing Ink. It's tale of Las Vegas tattoo artist Brett Kavanaugh who gets herself tangled up in a murder mystery. After Brett makes an appointment with a girl for a devotion tattoo (she wants a tattoo of her fiance's name and a heart) only to have the girl never show up and then go missing, the police start questioning Brett. And her brother's a detective so that makes things sometimes easier and sometimes trickier.

Using Brett's tattoo artist expertise, some...interesting minor characters, a super, super fancy hotel and it's high class manager Simon, a mystery full of twists and turns--and lots of tattoos on the Las Vegas strip, this is not quite your average mystery.

The Tattoo Shop Mysteries first book The Missing Ink is really a fun, cute, original, engaging mystery. While it wasn't predictable or like most other books (and not only because of the characters and setting)--and maybe at least partially of that---I really enjoyed it. At times it was the itsiest bit hard to follow , but only if you read very quickly and don't actually pay attention.

As long as you follow what's what and, more importantly, who's who, it should all be good.

I love that Brett is spunky and daring but not just tough and uncaring. She's a really well developed character and while she's not a girly girl, she's also not on the other end of the spectrum, either. She's real. And I loved her friends, too.

I'm really happy this is a series because I honestly can't wait to read more of this series, I read the first book from the library but I might have to buy the second one--I don't know if I can wait!

The second book, Pretty In Ink was released March 2, 2010.

9/10
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Great story! I couldn't put it down. :) ( )