Dial H for Hitchcock

Starred review from September 28, 2009
Alfred Hitchcock fans should love Kandel's fifth Cece Caruso mystery (after 2007's Christietown
), a terrific tribute that's also wickedly funny. L.A. vintage fashionista Cece, who's just returned from her solo honeymoon after dumping LAPD Det. Peter Gambino, is researching a Hitchcock biography when her life takes a Hitchcockian turn. After watching a screening of Vertigo
, she returns home to find someone else's cellphone in her purse. A curious call on the cellphone leads Cece to Beechwood Canyon, where she hopes to return it to its owner, Anita Colby. Instead, Cece winds up witnessing the cool blonde's murder. As Cece gets drawn deeper into a plot with alarming similarities to the celebrated director's noir masterpieces, she fears she's become a victim of identity theft as well as a dead ringer for the Kim Novak character in Vertigo
. Kandel keeps the action tight all the way to a delightful denouement that Hitch no doubt would've appreciated.

October 1, 2009
When she's framed for murder, it's up to Californian writer and vintage fashionista Cece Caruso (Christietown, 2007, etc.) to clear her name.

Cece is nursing a failed engagement by immersing herself in the films of Alfred Hitchcock. At a showing of Vertigo, she winds up with someone else's cell phone in her 1950s Lucite purse and attempts to return it by going to a cliffside rendezvous set up by a mysterious telephone caller. Instead of making a simple handoff, Cece witnesses a blond woman shoved to her death. When Cece grabs the phone to call 911, she gets an incoming call—a stranger telling her to say she saw a mere accident and, worse, a recording of what sounds like her own voice threatening the dead woman. Though she has many cops in her large, loving family, Cece decides not to tell the police but instead lies to them and investigates herself. Finding ID belonging to Anita Colby at the scene, she breaks into her apartment to reconnoiter. Despite the threats and the police's suspicions, Cece continues her blithe flirtation with the new guy next door and her trips to the park with her grandkids. But Anita's acquaintances claim she knew Cece, and so does the evidence. When Cece can no longer trust her own memories, she hits the road. Who's claiming to be Cece, and why did they kill Anita?

Flat characters, an implausible premise and a simply preposterous conclusion.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2009
Just back from a solo honeymoon, after canceling her wedding, Cece Caruso becomes embroiled in a devious plot that implicates her in a murder. Fortyish grandmother Cece, a Jersey girl relocated to L.A. who writes biographies of dead mystery authors, is researching Alfred Hitchcock when she finds a cell phone identical to hers in her purse. Her attempt to find the phones owner leads her to witness a man pushing a woman off a cliff, after which a call warns Cece to report the incident as an accident; then she finds a call recorded on the mysterious cell in which she herself threatens to kill the victim. Running just ahead of police to try to stay out of custody, she untangles the web with last-minute help from her former fianc', LAPD detective Peter Gambino. The fifth in the Cece Caruso series is another breezy, entertaining entry. Brisk prose, a pistol of a protagonist, and nice riffs on Hitchboth biographical and psychologicalmore than compensate for an overly contrived plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)