Fly Me to the Morgue

May 9, 2011
Set in 1962, Randisi's so-so sixth Rat Pack mystery (after January 2011's I'm a Fool to Kill You) offers plenty of Hollywood glamor but only a by-the-numbers plot. At the invitation of Dean Martin, Eddie Gianelli, the pit boss at Las Vegas's Sands casino, comes to Del Mar, Calif., to attend the Bing Crosby Handicap, a horse race. At Crosby's request, Eddie, who has served the Rat Pack as a discreet trouble-shooter, brings his sidekick, Jerry Epstein, who knows a lot about horses, to a thoroughbred ranch, Red Rock Farm, to help assess a horse that the singer is considering buying. At Red Rock Farm, the trio are shocked to find the animal's owner has been beaten to death. Once again, Eddie and Jerry turn sleuths. The inclusion of a host of celebrities from the early '60s will strike some readers as more gimmicky than intriguing.

June 15, 2011

In the sixth of Randisi's current series (I'm a Fool to Kill You, 2011, etc.), Bing Crosby makes the Rat Pack scene.

An iconic figure in the annals of pop, Crosby gets downsized here and nudged into the wings. True enough, he triggers the mystery, such as it is, but thereafter he does not much more than nudge the plot a bit through infrequent, mostly banal walk-ons. Seems Bing wants to buy a certain horse at a certain price. Seems the trainer on whose expertise he intended to rely has suddenly gone missing, giving rise to a need for ad hoc help. Enter Vegas's Eddie Gianelli, casino pit boss extraordinaire, ever ready, willing and, no matter how complex the challenge, remarkably able to aid the Rat Pack and all its adjuncts. And if Eddie enters, can hulking Jerry Epstein, career muscle guy, fail to heed the call of friendship? Though they're an ill-assorted pair of buddies, big Jerry always has the back of fast Eddie, who unfailingly returns the favor. Mutual support will soon be required, it turns out, when a hit man's bullets make targets of them both. Meanwhile, Bing's trainer goes from missing to dead, additional bodies are tagged and the ongoing question, never adequately answered, becomes: why all the gunplay and bloodletting just because a crooner wants to buy a horse for a song?

The weakest entry in the series to date. Pass it up, dig out a cherished old album instead and spin a platter or two.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011
Eddie Gianelli, pit boss at the Sands back when Vegas was Vegas, is no ordinary casino guy. Hes the casino guy who helps out the Rat Pack and their pals whenever trouble looms. This time it all starts when Bing Crosby needs to see a man about a horse. Der Bingle enlists Eddie and his brawny Brooklyn pal Jerry Epstein, who happens to know his horses, to help him check out the Thoroughbred in question. The nag looks fine, but the man whos selling the nag looks, well, dead. Its up to Eddie and Jerry to keep Bing out of the limelight while they find the killer. The appeal of this series is really quite simple. If you remember the Rat Pack era fondly, from the suits to the songs to the martinis, then you wont stop smiling from the moment you pick up an Eddie Gianelli adventure to the moment you close it. Its no easy trick to bring celebrities to life in a way that captures their charm, and Randisi nails it every time. (Well, he blows the scene where Eddie plays golf with Bing, but well give him a mulligan on that one.)(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)