Rhode Island Red (Nanette Hayes Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Nanette Hayes, A Fabulous New Impromptu Detective
Review: 'Rhose Island Red' had been sitting on my bookshelf for about two years (all avid bibliophiles have such backlogs), but it was worth the wait. Charlotte Carter gives us Nanette Hayes, a fresh new voice in the world of detective fiction.

Nanette Hayes may be smart and sassy, but she's rather directionless. Armed with a master's degree in French, a love for Paris, a taste for Rimbaud, a refined palate on a beer budget, and a true love affair with jazz, she spends her days playing saxaphone on the streets of a New York that Ms. Carter captures so lyrically.

This novel reminded me of the seminal French film 'Diva', with all the plot twists and unusual characters - crooked cops, $60,000 stashed inside a saxaphone, an elegant yet aging criminal who worships Charlie Parker, and a no-nonsense exotic dancer with a taste for Wall-Street investments. Oh, and a gay lower-level mobster who becomes Nanette's confidente of sorts.

The story centers around the urban legend of the Rhode Island Red, a saxaphone that was supposedly given to Charlie Parker from a mobster as a bribe to play at a wedding. A saxaphone that was reportedly filled with heroin.

Charlotte Carter writes in the breezy rhythmic style of a jazz musician, and the book was a joy to savor. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book, 'Coq Au Vin'. Our heroine goes to Paris...ooh la la!

Rating:
Summary: Blah
Review: A weak plot and a protagonist I didn't care about made for an unsatisfying read. Carter's hero, Nanette, came across as far too contrived a character for me to get in to. She's a jazz freak, who's got a master's in French and passes her days busking with a sax on the streets of New York, and her best friend is a stripper--ooo, neat. The murder of an undercover cop in her apartment kicks things off, but it never goes anywhere that interesting. Might actually be better as a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Completely forgettable...
Review: As a mystery-lover, I was excited about potentially finding a new character series to follow, but I had no success with this book. Carter's style is tiresome and contrived -- I found both the heroine and the plot cliched, overdone, and generally mediocre. It's rare that I read a book and think to myself, "Wow, this is really awful," but that's exactly what I was thinking throughout the entire read. I won't be investigating the sequel or any other Carter creations.