Jorgensen, Christine T.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Denver, CO.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Calling for a Funeral, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2007.

"STELLA THE STARGAZER" MYSTERY SERIES

A Love to Die For, Walker (New York, NY), 1994.

You Bet Your Life, Walker (New York, NY), 1995.

Curl Up and Die, Walker (New York, NY), 1997.

Death of a Dustbunny, Walker (New York, NY), 1998.

Dead on Her Feet, Walker (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

Several of Christine T. Jorgensen's mystery novels center on the adventures of Stella the Stargazer, who writes a newspaper column combining astrology and advice on romantic problems. Jorgensen introduced Stella in A Love to Die For, in which psychically gifted Jane Smith adopts the Stella moniker, leaves her accounting job, and begins writing the feature for a Denver paper. The first person who writes to her seeking advice is murdered, drawing Stella into detective work.

Stella continues to encounter mysterious and hazardous situations in subsequent titles. In You Bet Your Life, which takes her to a gambling resort, she is both a killer's target and a murder suspect. Curl Up and Die involves the murder by electrocution of the proprietor of a hair salon and spa, a man who had been having affairs with a friend of Stella's and one of her correspondents. The friend, Meredith, is accused of the crime, and Stella tries to clear Meredith and find the true perpetrator while dodging threats to her own life. In this entry Stella also develops a romance with a colleague, Jason.

Some critics have described Stella as an unusual and eccentric protagonist. A junk-food addict who keeps a pet chameleon, she is intelligent and funny, and she is tenacious in her sleuthing, but her psychic abilities are sometimes unreliable, leading her down the wrong path. Ilene Cooper, reviewing Curl Up and Die in Booklist, noted Stella's "off-the-wall style and savvy." A Publishers Weekly contributor, who deemed the book a "breezy mystery," characterized its heroine as "witty, smart and utterly brazen," even though she is occasionally "more blundering than brilliant."

Death of a Dustbunny deals with the disappearance of Stella's friend Elena, who works for a service called Dustbunnies, which places housekeepers and nannies with its clients. She takes Elena's place in caring for the young son of a wealthy widower; the boy claims a vampire kidnapped and killed Elena, but Stella seeks out mortal suspects. A Publishers Weekly reviewer thought that "quirky characters take precedence over plot" in this novel, but predicted it would be "quite satisfactory for readers with a high threshold for the cutes." A critic for the Web site Writers Write, however, praised the book's "offbeat sense of humor" and summed it up as "an enjoyable escape."

Dead on Her Feet finds Stella moonlighting as the assistant director for a theater company while she tries to get her column syndicated and Jason considers moving to New York for a job. The theater company is full of egotistical artists, including one of its leaders, Barbara, who is also making her debut as a playwright. She is a difficult woman with many enemies, so early in the novel, someone tries to kill her, setting Stella to investigating backstage.

"Jorgensen's mystery contains a convoluted and elaborate plot, filled with extravagant scenes and numerous unusual and multi-faceted characters," commented Monica Pope on the Mystery Reader Web site. She added that the theatrical setting will be a draw for some readers. John Rowen, writing in Booklist, found the book's assets include "endearingly quirky characters" and a "clever plot." Pope summed up Stella as a "determined, kind-hearted, and honest amateur sleuth with a unique personality."

With Calling for a Funeral, Jorgensen goes outside the "Stella" series but creates another independent, idiosyncratic protagonist. Francie Starzel, who comes from a family of criminals and whose fiancé died when his methamphetamine lab caught fire, leaves Chicago with her fiancé's son to try to build a respectable life for them in Denver. An old friend, Helene, hires her at a computer firm, then fires her, and when Helene is murdered, Francie is a suspect. She has to do some detective work to prove her innocence, sometimes using underhanded means, and she is attracted to the police officer on the case but also wary of him. "Francie is an offbeat, totally mesmerizing heroine," related Robin Lee on the Romance Reviews Today Web site. Lee noted the character has "intelligence, humor, persistence and a blasé act," adding that the novel is "a funny, smart mystery with the barest hint of impending romance."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Ilene Cooper, review of A Love to Die For, p. 1777; December 15, 1996, Ilene Cooper, review of Curl Up and Die, p. 712; May 15, 1999, John Rowen, review of Dead on Her Feet, p. 1673.

Library Journal, July, 1994, Rex E. Klett, review of A Love to Die For, p. 132; December, 1996, Rex E. Klett, review of Curl Up and Die, p. 151.

Publishers Weekly, June 6, 1994, review of A Love to Die For, p. 60; August 7, 1995, review of You Bet Your Life, p. 447; October 21, 1996, review of Curl Up and Die, p. 73; March 9, 1998, review of Death of a Dustbunny, p. 51; June 21, 1999, review of Dead on Her Feet, p. 60.

School Library Journal, June, 1997, Pam Johnson, review of Curl Up and Die, p. 151.

Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 1998, review of Death of a Dustbunny, p. 202; August, 1999, review of Dead on Her Feet, p. 184.

ONLINE

Mystery Reader,http://www.themysteryreader.com/ (May 5, 1999), Kay Black, review of Death of a Dustbunny;(July 16, 1999), Monica Pope, review of Dead on Her Feet.

Romance Reviews Today,http://www.romrevtoday.com/ (March 20, 2007), Robin Lee, review of Calling for a Funeral.

Writers Write,http://www.writerswrite.com/ (December 12, 2007), review of Death of a Dustbunny.