Some Like It Hot-Buttered by Jeffrey Cohen, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Some Like It Hot-Buttered is the first comedy/mystery by Jeffrey Cohen in the Double Feature series that introduces New Jersey theater owner Elliot Freed.

Elliot owns "Comedy Tonight" where comedy buffs can attend movies from the 30s through the present. Together with Sophie, assigned to the concession stand and the all-important task of popping corn, and Anthony (not Tony) who sells tickets, takes tickets, and ushers the guests to their seats, Elliot is working to make the theater a thriving business. During the showing of Young Frankenstein one night, a friend a loyal patron is found dead in his seat. Everyone thought he had a heart attack, but the coroner rules that he was killed by poison on his popcorn. The theater is now a crime scene, and to make matters worse, the police find boxes of pirated DVDs in the backroom. And then Anthony disappears making him the prime suspect for being both a killer and a pirate (though the crimes hardly seem related). Elliot believes the police are more interested in the case of the illegal movies than in the dead patron, so he sets out to find the man's murderer.

This is a very funny mystery. It may help if the reader is a fan of older movies, especially comedies, to enjoy some of the humor here, but even those who have never seen a black-and-white film will appreciate what Cohen has achieved. The characters are well-defined, the dialog frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and the plot adequately complex without being overly complicated.

Some Like It Hot-Buttered is a terrific debut to a series that should have a lot of potential. There's certainly no shortage of movie titles to play off of!

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Some Like It Hot-Buttered.

Acknowledgment: Breakthrough Promotions provided a copy of Some Like It Hot-Buttered for this review.

Some Like It Hot-Buttered

A Double Feature Mystery with Elliot Freed by Jeffrey Cohen