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Rating: 
Summary: Fifty-fifty
Review: I really wanted The Cold Blue Blood to be the start of a great new series, because I was a big fan of the Stewart Hoag books. But while film critic Mitch Berger is a well-conceived character, unfortunately Desiree Mitry is simply not believable. The fault lies primarily in Handler's attempts to have Desiree sound like a black woman. It doesn't work and, sadly, she comes across sounding like an aging valley girl, repeating the word "way" w-a-y too often, calling other women "girl" regardless of their ages, and talking about her "bootay" (read that as butt.) As well, her reactions to Mitch seem more teenage than adult. And this is a shame, because the plot is not without merit and the other characters in the book are well-drawn and believable. Handler is a seasoned writer who knows how to retain control of his material, and how to move the narrative along at a good pace. As well, his descriptions of Connecticut are accurate and appealing; he captures very successfully the flavor of the state and its great social contradictions. But for this projected series to work, he's going to have to make Des more real, more human, and less of a caricature. I'll go for the next book in the series, in the hope that he can pull it off.
Rating:
Summary: Ran Hot and Cold
Review: The prologue of this mystery about a series of murders in a small community started off fabulous. Unfortunately, the rest of the book never quite lived up to that excitement. It simply slowly unfolded. Mitch is a despondent film critic who has lost his wife and can't bring himself out of the ensuing depression. His boss sends him off to do a travel article in hopes that a change of scenery will do him good. He finds himself renting a carriage house there on the small Connecticut Island of Big Sister. A dead body turns up and Desiree, a Lieutenant in the Major Crimes Squad, is summoned to investigate. There were several interesting facets to the main characters. Since Mitch is a film critic, the frequent comparisons he makes between old films and real life were right on target. Desiree's constant search for homes for her rescued stray cats was amusing and also showed her need to produce the happy outcomes that she couldn't in her job. However, I felt the attraction between Mitch and Desiree was forced and didn't feel real. It could have easily been left out entirely. Mitch has an idea on how to resolve the murders that works well with his character but I thought there could have been more of a twist at the end.
Rating:
Summary: Ran Hot and Cold
Review: The prologue of this mystery about a series of murders in a small community started off fabulous. Unfortunately, the rest of the book never quite lived up to that excitement. It simply slowly unfolded. Mitch is a despondent film critic who has lost his wife and can't bring himself out of the ensuing depression. His boss sends him off to do a travel article in hopes that a change of scenery will do him good. He finds himself renting a carriage house there on the small Connecticut Island of Big Sister. A dead body turns up and Desiree, a Lieutenant in the Major Crimes Squad, is summoned to investigate. There were several interesting facets to the main characters. Since Mitch is a film critic, the frequent comparisons he makes between old films and real life were right on target. Desiree's constant search for homes for her rescued stray cats was amusing and also showed her need to produce the happy outcomes that she couldn't in her job. However, I felt the attraction between Mitch and Desiree was forced and didn't feel real. It could have easily been left out entirely. Mitch has an idea on how to resolve the murders that works well with his character but I thought there could have been more of a twist at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: The start of a delightful new series
Review: Though only thirty-two years old, New York City film critic and author Mitch Berger feels his life ended the day his beloved wife died from ovarian cancer. His editor Lacy Mickerson worries that Mitch rarely leaves his Greenwich Village home, passing time watching classic films. He even rejected a trip to Cannes for the festival. Because she cares, Lacy sends Mitch to Dorset on the Connecticut Gold Coast, allegedly to write an article, but more to get him out of his apartment.
Surprisingly, Mitch finds the town charming and even rents a home from Dolly Seymour on exclusive Big Sister as he sees this as an opportunity to start over again. However, his need for a new type of tranquillity is disturbed when he finds a corpse in his garden. Police Lieutenant Desiree Mitry of the State Major Crimes Squad leads the official investigation even as Mitch makes his own brand of inquiries. As they run into one another, Mitch and Desiree form an attraction, but he feels guilty and she hurts from the abandonment of her first spouse, making it obvious that once the case is solved the relationship is over or is it?
Renowned for his Hoag novels, David Handler begins a new series starring two attractive and complex individuals. A die hard New Yorker, Mitch remains in mourning until he arrives at Big Sister while Dolly is a beautiful Amazonian African-American who mistrusts males except if they are cats. Thrown together in an interesting police-procedural-amateur sleuth who-done-it, they form the basis for a wonderful opening novel. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: The start of a delightful new series
Review: Though only thirty-two years old, New York City film critic and author Mitch Berger feels his life ended the day his beloved wife died from ovarian cancer. His editor Lacy Mickerson worries that Mitch rarely leaves his Greenwich Village home, passing time watching classic films. He even rejected a trip to Cannes for the festival. Because she cares, Lacy sends Mitch to Dorset on the Connecticut Gold Coast, allegedly to write an article, but more to get him out of his apartment.
Surprisingly, Mitch finds the town charming and even rents a home from Dolly Seymour on exclusive Big Sister as he sees this as an opportunity to start over again. However, his need for a new type of tranquillity is disturbed when he finds a corpse in his garden. Police Lieutenant Desiree Mitry of the State Major Crimes Squad leads the official investigation even as Mitch makes his own brand of inquiries. As they run into one another, Mitch and Desiree form an attraction, but he feels guilty and she hurts from the abandonment of her first spouse, making it obvious that once the case is solved the relationship is over or is it?
Renowned for his Hoag novels, David Handler begins a new series starring two attractive and complex individuals. A die hard New Yorker, Mitch remains in mourning until he arrives at Big Sister while Dolly is a beautiful Amazonian African-American who mistrusts males except if they are cats. Thrown together in an interesting police-procedural-amateur sleuth who-done-it, they form the basis for a wonderful opening novel. Harriet Klausner
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