Social Crimes

Rating:
Summary: Like Page 6? You Will Love This.
Review: If you read W Magazine every month, drooling at the "celebutantes", the parties, the clothes, the society; then you will love this book. It is impossible to put down (so make sure your laundry is done and the dog has been walked before picking it up). Hitchcock creates a modern day Edith Wharton novel about the dark side of New York society. The protaganist of the story, Jo Slater (queen of the middle aged socialites) is dethroned from her elite standing in society when a french countess appears on the social scene and steals her husband. After her downfall the reader is travels with Jo on her attempt to recover and regain her status--at any cost. Clever, well written, and plot driven, SOCIAL CRIMES is a mystery worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Good to the last page
Review: In SOCIAL CRIMES, author Jane Stanton Hitchcock has crafted a page-turner that will fascinate her fans right up to the final sentence.

Her story is clever, and the detail she offers about upper class life, its affectations and its hypocrisy, alone is worth the book's price. Hitchcock writes about what passes for high society in modern-day New York. Knowledgable readers will have a lot of fun identifying all of the mimimally disguised characters and places in this book.

Hitchcock pokes fun at many of this society's pretensions, such as when she uses the heroine's fascination with Marie Antoinette as a counterpoint for the basic plot. Wait! Wasn't it Mrs. G, the former stewardess, who went French on "tout New York" exactly as the heroine, a former restaurant hostess, herself does in SOCIAL CRIMES?

This story is stunning in its cleverness, and it is a credit to Ms. Hitchcock's fertile imagination. She hangs this entire novel on the one loophole under New York estate law that obviates a spouse's absolute right to claim a share of inheritance under the will of the deceased husband or wife, and she uses this loophole with brilliance. Hitchcock's storytelling skills are wonderful.

SOCIAL CRIMES is a fun read that leaves one thinking after the book concludes.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for the beach -- if you don't mind staying up late!
Review: This is a very witty, fun, light read. It doesn't take itself seriously, but the plot is riveting enough that you may find that you can not put this book down. A definite guilty pleasure!