Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding.
Review: I'm not sure how long Jane Haddam can continue surpassing herself, but she's done it this time. I was convinced that True Believers was her best, but then I read Somebody Else's Music.Gregor Demarkian is pulled into a 30-year old murder by an acquaintance of Bennis'. What he discovers is that the murder, and the other events of the evening when it occurred, still color current events and everyday life for those who were involved. Liz Toliver, the acquaintance, is going back to her hometown after a 30-year absence to take care of her aging mother. It seems that her schoolmates from all those years ago have been awaiting her reappearance, and it's clear that for quite a few of them, high school never really ended. High school is a strange phenomenon in the US, and Somebody Else's Music brings us inside that strangeness, and lets us see just how devastating it can be for some students. The way the murders play out, and the way the interactions between the characters play out, are rooted in their high school behavior, 32 years later. The characters are real and precisely drawn, and when, finally, Liz Toliver overcomes her past and decides to live NOW, it was all I could do not to stand up and cheer. If you're interested in reading an excellent mystery, beautifully written, read Somebody Else's Music. If you want to read a character study about a woman coming to terms with her past and rising above it, read Somebody Else's Music. And if you want to read what is, after all, an indictment of the foolishness that we Americans indulge ourselves in in high school, read Somebody Else's Music. It's all those things.
Rating: 
Summary: Somebody Else's Music
Review: Jane Haddam has been one of my favorite authors since her first series. I have read and re-read her books. This one I will never touch again! It is depressing and these people simply don't ring true to me. It is possible that I am simply too old. In my high school days, the level of bullying had not reached the height that it apparently has nowadays. Teachers and parents kept the bullying down to a low level, I guess. My gut reaction is that if you have known people like this in your life, I really pity you.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book Is A Joke
Review: Jane Haddam has definite writing skill. That cannot be called into question. What is definitely questionable is her sense of judgment when writing this book. Forget all of the murky details about cold cases and celebrity stalking. Haddam has turned this entry of her normally enjoyable Demarkian series into a bully pulpit. Even her children call this her "revenge book", according to one interview online. Whatever mystery exists in this volume is purely tertiary. First you must wade through the exhaustive worship of the main character-So Beautiful! So Intelligent! So R-i-i-i-ch!
Then you must wallow in the lengthy characterizations of her erstwhile enemies. They're Fat! They're Abused! They're Divorced! They're P-o-o-o-r! Haddam means for this to be her treatise against high school hierarchies and bullying; a post-Columbine novel of particular relevence. Rather she comes across as a broken woman who cannot transcend her own bullied past and instead becomes a genteel bully herself. If you feel that you would enjoy reading about an improbably "successful" person who cannot stop living 30 years in the past, then this is the book for you. If you believe that people are not truly successful until they accept who they are and overcome their obstacles then you probably are better off reading something else.
Rating:
Summary: The best revenge is living well.
Review: Jane Haddam has written 17 previous classic mysteries featuring Gregor Demarkian and Bennis Hannaford. This latest edition is so much more than a continuation of a wonderful series. People who behave this way in real life will undoubtedly refuse to recognize their characterizations, but I have to say, this is a completely "gut-wrenching" story, so intense that I needed periodic breaks just to convince myself that it WAS fiction. "Somebody Else's Music" is the story of Elizabeth Toliver, once an outcast now a noted author, who returns to the town where she was raised to face the people who made her childhood a recurring nightmare . . . except that Elizabeth still has nightmares. Of course, there is a mystery to be solved, with Gregor and Bennis in attendance. As delightful as I always find Gregor and Bennis and their interactions that are such a compelling facet of Jane's series, they are not the story this time. This story faces the past and rips the cover-up away. For every man, woman or child who has ever been the target of a bully: face them off, SEE them for what they are, and fling YOUR veil into a fountain!
Rating:
Summary: Bully for Haddam
Review: Jane Haddam's Somebody Else's Music will keep you puzzled until the very end. The story begins with a murder set in the remote dark ages of high school. It haunts Elizabeth Tolliver, who was the odd girl out. When Tolliver returns to her hometown, the scene of the grand scale bullying and snubbing, death makes a fresh appearance. The perpetrators are all on hand; some are frozen in late 60's fashion. As entertaining as Somebody Else's Music is, it has the quality of truth. It touches on the cruelty that has been a part of school life at least since Tom Brown's school days and probably in the schools of ancient scribes. Not one of Haddam's fascinating holiday mysteries, some of the cast from Cavanaugh Street do appear with retired FBI Gregor Demarkian. Like Harry Kemmelman, Dick Francis, and Tony Hillerman Haddam not only tells a story she creates a world. This novel is not just another entry into the bibliography of the genere. It has the quality of literature and uncovers the darker side of idolized small town life.
Rating:
Summary: e is for exorcism
Review: Reading this book left a nasty taste in my mouth. Not because I experienced the horrors the protagonist did in her youth, but because I was saddened to see that the author (presumably well out of high school) still had not managed to transcend the horrors that (presumably) happened to her in high school.
If you enjoy movies where the 90-pound weakling triumphs over all the meanies, plus gets to face them down and make a big inspirational speech, you should like this book. If instead, you understand that "real life" is a lot more complex than it's painted here, that some former bullies do eventually grow up to live happy, law-abiding lives, and that not every nerd gets to play out a four star revenge fantasy on his/her tormentors, you probably won't. The characters - except for the two detectives who are pretty minor to the story - are all garishly drawn cartoons. Old antagonists just don't gain some weight and marry losers - they become obese and marry psychopaths who bash in their heads at the least provocation. The protagonist herself doesn't just get to be a published author - she gets to hobnob with celebrities plus is married to a famous singer. Wow! Aren't those meanies sorry they picked on her now! The plot is likely to leave you scratching your head. A potentially powerful storyline - the prog's mom, with whom she has a antagonistic relationship, has Alzheimer's and is dying - is ignored. Mom is merely a device to help get the heroine back to town. The book closes with a scene from the heroine's son, Mark, about to get lucky. Mark is a minor character, too, and even people who like this book probably won't care overmuch what happens to him. The book would have been stronger had it selected one or two bullies and focused on them v. Liz. Instead, every few pages, we're introduced to someone new. More cartoons pile up, until keeping track of who's who is near impossible. Liz, herself, could have been a lot more fleshed out. I wanted to sympathize with her, but she just didn't get enough page space for this to happen. In the end, I kept reading simply for the shock value the book unabashedly delivered. All through, I could hear the author putting out her tongue and singing Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.
Rating: 
Summary: Stylish and wicked
Review: Successful writer and CNN celebrity Liz Toliver has never really gotten over her traumatic high school days as "Betsy Wetsy," the bookish, socially awkward butt of an almost over-the-top collection of nasty "popular" girls. This experience peaked during a bizarre night when Liz was nailed into a park outhouse with 22 snakes (she was well known to be phobic) while a classmate was murdered nearby. Now made even more famous by her coupling with a heart-throb rock star, Liz has to go "home" after 30 years to attend to her ill mother, dogged by the tabloid press which has her pegged for the killing.
Enter Haddam's Armenian-American veteran sleuth, Gregor Demarkian, retired chief of the FBI's behavioral science unit, hired by Liz's famous fiancé to look into the old, unsolved murder. The story shifts point of view among all these characters and only a writer of Haddam's wit and skill ("True Believers," "Skeleton Key") could carry off a story with such relentless venal and despicable types at its core - the brainless prom queen turned balding grotesque, the vindictive Machiavellian ring leader mired in sour alcoholism, the likely-to-succeed girl turned principal from hell, the faithful battered wife, the fat lady and the girl who got everything she wanted.
Demarkian, a confirmed city person whose ethnic experience leaves him baffled and bemused by the insidious small-town mindset, gives the story perspective and Liz, whose success has not relieved her myriad vulnerabilities and insecurities, gives it heart. Haddam's exploration of a cultural subset which finds its peak in high school triumphs is fiendishly believable and the resolution is aptly horrifying. A stylish and wicked success.
Rating:
Summary: Somebody Else's Music
Review: Thank God! I finally finished this book and only did so to see if the stupidest, meanest cast of characters ever written got what was coming to them (some of them did, sort of). The book wasn't badly written and the story could have been pretty good except for the people inhabiting it. In the past year, I've read two other of this author's books: "True Believers" and "And One to Die On" but may not try any more of her works. In the epilogue, the author (Jane Haddam) notes that "the picture of Jane Haddam didn't do her justice." Take another picture, Jane, and stop talking about yourself in the third person in your novels. I've never felt compelled to review a book before but this one made me do it!
Rating:
Summary: About Time
Review: The nice thing about Jane's books is that she doesn't shy away from the tough subjects. This book is all about a tough subject, and it's about time people sit up and pay attention. Mind you, it brought back lots of awful memories of the schoolyard. There's a reason I still hate my home town. If you're only interested in pulp, go read romances. If you're interested in thoughtful portrayal of things some would prefer to keep their heads in the sand about, read ALL Jane Haddam's novels. It's in there, and it's good.
Rating:
Summary: Jane Haddam Knows the Right Music
Review: This is going to be one of my favorite Gregor Demarkian mysteries and I like all of them. In this book Jane Haddam does what every good writer does. She gives us a small glance into her feelings, holds up a mirror to our own memories and emotions and tells a ripping good story at the same time. Anyone who remembers high school with pain or disdain will be immediately roped into this small Pennsylvania town and its citizens who mostly are still living their Glory Days, to quote Bruce Springsteen. And like all middle aged people who hit their peaks at 16, they're pitiful and pathetic and pestilential. What's more the mystery is just as convuluted and clean as Haddam's mysteries always are. Thank you Jane Haddam.
| 
