Hot
Rocks
A Nick Hoffman Mystery
Lev Raphael
Perseverance Press (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-880284-83-9 (1880284839)
ISBN-13: 978-1-880284-83-4 (9781880284834)
Publication Date: April 2007
List Price: $14.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Fitness = Death, when Nick Hoffman heads back to the
gym after his Caribbean vacation, finding himself caught in a Desperate
Housewives-type mystery.
Just back from their Caribbean vacation, professor Nick Hoffman and his
partner, Stefan Borowski, need to get back in shape. Michigan Muscle is
a luxurious health club near the State University of Michigan. With the
latest equipment and top-notch personal trainers, it‘s a palatial
complex for fitness. But every palace has its intrigue, and when Nick
finds a dead trainer in the steam room, he‘s drawn into a web of
passion and privilege unlike anything he‘s experienced before.
The prime suspect because he discovered the body, Nick has to work out
this mystery to its bitter end.
Review: Hot Rocks is the 7th mystery by Lev Raphael in the Nick Hoffman series set in a major metropolis in Michigan.
The opening chapter of Hot Rocks sets the stage for a interesting
locked room-type murder mystery: Nick Hoffman, relaxing in the steam
room at a popular health club, tries to engage the room's only other
occupant, Vlado, a trainer at the club, in conversation. When he
realizes that Vlado reminds him of the young poet depicted in the
painting The Death of Chatterton,
he begins to suspect that Vlado may be dead. And indeed he is, murdered
by a blunt object struck to the head. With all the people coming and
going at the club, how could someone have killed Vlado without being
seen?
Unfortunately, the who, how, and why aspects of the murder are largely
set aside until the very end. Both how the crime was committed and how
Nick puts the pieces together to solve it are very clever indeed. But
what transpires between the beginning and the end borders on the
tedious.
Part of the problem is in the description of Nick's friend Juno
Dromgoole. She's intended to be a larger-than-life character with
exaggerated features. But she dominates whatever scene she is in to the
point of distraction. And her presence is pervasive, overpowering that
of Nick Hoffman. Less, much less, of Juno would truly equate to a more,
far more, readable and enjoyable book.
A more subtle problem lays in Raphael's constant use of literary and
artistic references. Comparing Vlado to Chatterton in the first chapter
is inspired; even if the reader had never seen the painting, they could
imagine what might be depicted and construct a mental picture of
the dead trainer in the steam room. But scarcely a page goes by without
some simile being presented. Some of these work well; consider this
eloquent passage: "I couldn't figure out what was underneath her
languor, but it felt insidious, maybe even corrupt. Though not as
strange, she reminded me of Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep."
But most references are either just contextually odd ("I don't see how
you ended up studying Wharton. Your period is really the Picaresque,
and Juno is right out of Fielding.") or nonsensical ("My new [chairman]
had recently risen to the top through politicking as arcane as some of
the references in The Da Vinci Code."). Some might find Raphael's writing in this manner witty, but it's mostly arduous and tiresome.
Finally, Raphael tends to use unusual names for his characters, so a
Who's Who at the beginning is a very helpful addition for keeping track
of them.
Hot Rocks is a near miss: a terrific mystery overwhelmed by verbiage.
Special thanks to Perseverance Press for providing a copy of Hot Rocks for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Let's Get Criminal
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover), 1996
ISBN-10: 0-312-13999-3 (0312139993)
The Edith Wharton Murders
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover), 1997
ISBN-10: 0-312-15519-0 (0312155190)
The Death of a Constant Lover
Walker (Hardcover), 1999
ISBN-10: 0-8027-3326-3 (0802733263)
Little Miss Evil
Walker (Hardcover), 2000
ISBN-10: 0-8027-3342-5 (0802733425)
Burning Down the House
Walker (Hardcover), 2001
ISBN-10: 0-8027-3365-4 (0802733654)
Tropic of Murder
Perseverance Press (Trade Paperback), 2004
ISBN-10: 1-880284-68-5 (1880284685)
Hot Rocks
Perseverance Press (Trade Paperback), 2007
ISBN-10: 1-880284-83-9 (1880284839)
Omnimystery keywords for Hot Rocks ...
Location(s) referenced: Michigan.
