The Man Who Couldn't Miss

May 14, 2018
In Edgar-winner Handler’s delightful 10th Stewart Hoag mystery (after 2017’s The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes), Hollywood ghostwriter and novelist Stewart joins his ex-wife, actress Merilee Nash, at her farm in Lyme, Conn. While Stewart writes in the farm’s guest cottage, Merilee is focused on the upcoming one-night performance to save the decrepit Sherbourne Playhouse, where she’s playing the female lead in Noël Coward’s Private Lives. It’s 1993, and the many celebrities from New York attending the benefit show include Jackie O and her “dark and handsome son,” who Stewart believes “should have just become the next Tom Selleck instead of trying to be an assistant Manhattan D.A.” When, during the play’s intermission, the male lead is found in the men’s room with his head bashed in, Stewart once again turns sleuth. He must also deal with a failed actor who’s blackmailing Merilee. Fans of light period mysteries full of famous names will be enchanted. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

June 1, 2018
Summer 1993 finds sometime novelist Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag back at work on a new book, happily resident on his ex-wife Merilee Nash's Connecticut farm, but unable to kick his fatal attraction toward inconvenient corpses in awkward places.While Hoagy types furiously, Merilee's taking time out from her Hollywood career to organize a fundraiser on behalf of the storied Sherbourne Playhouse. The weather forecast for the one-night-only benefit staging of Private Lives is dire, but that doesn't deter Merilee or her co-stars--hunky Greg Farber, his wife, Dini Hawes, and womanizing Marty Miller--from learning their lines and mastering Noel Coward's comic rhythms. Another dark cloud appears on the horizon when R.J. Romero, a Yale drama classmate who shares a nasty secret with Merilee, pops up like a jack-in-the-box to blackmail her. But the show must go on despite predictions of torrential rain, high winds, and umbrellas galore for both the audience and the stars, though the weather is far from the worst complication in store. The first act goes off without a hitch, but during the intermission, to the surprise of everyone but fans of the series (The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes, 2017, etc.), the cast loses one of its leading lights to a killer, and as if on cue, skeletons begin tumbling from closets, revealing the past histories of everyone involved to be even more checkered than the sexual adventures of Coward's principals. Accompanied by Lulu, his faithful basset hound, Hoagy sidles into sleuthing alongside Lt. Carmine Tedone of the Connecticut State Police. Although he acts on several hunches he coyly declines to share with the reader and drags the cast through an interminable restaging of the crime, he gets to share detecting honors with Lulu.Familiar premise, busy plotting, stock characters. As usual, Hoagy's narration is the bright spot in a tangle of intrigue wilder than Noel Coward ever could have imagined.

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Starred review from July 1, 2018
It's 1993, and Stewart Hoag's creative juices are flowing again as he stays on the farm owned by his ex-wife, award-winning actress Merilee Nash. As Hoagy writes, Merilee is directing a benefit production (aimed at saving the historic Sherbourne Playhouse) of Noel Coward's Private Lives, starring herself and fellow Yale School of Drama classmates Oscar-winning actors Greg Farber; his wife, Dini Hawes; and Marty Miller. With the event drawing celebrities from Jackie O to Kate Hepburn, Merilee is fretting that the production is failing to gel, concerned about a bad storm predicted for the night of the event, and worried, most of all, about the fact that she's being blackmailed by old college flame R. J. Romero, a talented actor who never made it big. But all of this pales when, after the successful first act, one of the stars is found murdered in a rapidly flooding dressing room. Hoagy, along with his keen-scented basset hound, Lulu, is on the case, uncovering dreadful secrets as he goes along. Reintroduced by Handler last year (The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes) following a long hiatus, Hoagy is a thoroughly engaging amateur sleuth, as appealing to readers as he is enraging to the authorities, who can't abide his unconventional methods. This tenth installment in the series is pure pleasure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2018

In the summer of 1993, ghostwriter Stewart Hoag is ensconced in his ex-wife Merilee's guest cottage on her Connecticut farm, scribbling away after ten years of writer's block. Directing a one-night-only production of Noel Coward's Private Lives, Merilee's brought in award-winning former classmates from the Yale School of Drama for a fundraiser to restore the dilapidated Sherbourne Playhouse, where Katharine Hepburn first performed. But one classmate-turned-criminal is blackmailing the others, including Merilee. Is he responsible when the curtain comes down in the second act following the murder of one of the stars? Hoagy and his basset hound Lulu are on the case, using dapper clothes, witty comments, and Lulu's nose as weapons. VERDICT This latest by Handler (The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes) is set firmly in the world of celebrities. The humor, charming lead characters, and Hoagy's desperate attempts to regain Merilee's love will appeal to admirers of Spencer Quinn's "Chet and Bernie" series. Fans of theater and Hollywood mysteries will delight in the name-dropping and cameo appearances.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018

Suave celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag is hanging about as his former wife, Oscar-winning actress Merilee Nash, directs a stage production to benefit a local theater in Connecticut. You can bet one of the glittery cast members gets axed in a big way, and it's up to Hoagy and basset hound Lulu to find the killer. Next in the Edgar Award-winning series; with a 30,000-copy hardcover and 40,000-copy paperback first printing.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.