Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: It was a dark and stormy night, so starts "lets all kill Constance". An old Hollywood star shows up at the narrator's doorstep with a book claiming that it is a book of the dead and that every name on the list is eaither dead will be very shortly. Then the Hollywood star disappears into the storm. The narrarator enlists the help of an unwilling friend to find Constance and track down the names in the book. This book is typical Bradbury with the metaphor and is fun to read. He just keeps getting better and better with time. Once again there is more to the eye than is apparent here. Bradbury takes the reader through the Hollywood he remembers with the stars of yesteryear and their over the top lifestyles, but he also shows that it is not all glamour and things do fade with time. Once again as with other of his later works, "Graveyard for Lunatics" the narrator is unnamed (you can guess who it is) and is told in a breathless first person. This is a homage to the 1940's film noir mysteries and is great fun. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable
Review: It was a dark and stormy night, so starts "lets all kill Constance". An old Hollywood star shows up at the narrator's doorstep with a book claiming that it is a book of the dead and that every name on the list is eaither dead will be very shortly. Then the Hollywood star disappears into the storm. The narrarator enlists the help of an unwilling friend to find Constance and track down the names in the book. This book is typical Bradbury with the metaphor and is fun to read. He just keeps getting better and better with time. Once again there is more to the eye than is apparent here. Bradbury takes the reader through the Hollywood he remembers with the stars of yesteryear and their over the top lifestyles, but he also shows that it is not all glamour and things do fade with time. Once again as with other of his later works, "Graveyard for Lunatics" the narrator is unnamed (you can guess who it is) and is told in a breathless first person. This is a homage to the 1940's film noir mysteries and is great fun. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A msytery surrounding old Hollywood told by a master writer
Review: One dark, stormy night in Venice, California, a writer's worked is interrupted when Constance Rattigan, a glamorous movie star of old Hollywood, shows up on his doorstep. Frightened by something following her, she gives the writer two books and disappears. The books are phone registers of old Hollywood, filled with names of stars long dead or waiting to die. Some of the names have been circled and marked with a red cross, including hers. The writer enlists the aid of his friend Crumley and sets off on a trek through Hollywood haunts and memories to save Constance. This is a marvelous mystery, filled with images both real and ethereal, as only Ray Bradbury can conjure them. Hollywood becomes a mysterious and magical place, filled with secrets waiting to be discovered. And, in the midst of these images, he tells the story of a glamorous actress from old Hollywood trying to get away from memories of the past. The characters all have a certain quirkiness about them that makes them fit seamlessly into the novel, whether it's Crumley the faithful friend; Henry, the blind man who used to search old cemeteries with the writer; or the writer himself, nameless but makes you wonder through sublte hints if you actually know him. It's a fast-paced book that I couldn't put down once I started. I felt as if I were right in the thick with the characters as they searched for Constance. Few books can really do that, in my opinion, and this is one of the best.
Rating:
Summary: A msytery surrounding old Hollywood told by a master writer
Review: One dark, stormy night in Venice, California, a writer's worked is interrupted when Constance Rattigan, a glamorous movie star of old Hollywood, shows up on his doorstep. Frightened by something following her, she gives the writer two books and disappears. The books are phone registers of old Hollywood, filled with names of stars long dead or waiting to die. Some of the names have been circled and marked with a red cross, including hers. The writer enlists the aid of his friend Crumley and sets off on a trek through Hollywood haunts and memories to save Constance. This is a marvelous mystery, filled with images both real and ethereal, as only Ray Bradbury can conjure them. Hollywood becomes a mysterious and magical place, filled with secrets waiting to be discovered. And, in the midst of these images, he tells the story of a glamorous actress from old Hollywood trying to get away from memories of the past. The characters all have a certain quirkiness about them that makes them fit seamlessly into the novel, whether it's Crumley the faithful friend; Henry, the blind man who used to search old cemeteries with the writer; or the writer himself, nameless but makes you wonder through sublte hints if you actually know him. It's a fast-paced book that I couldn't put down once I started. I felt as if I were right in the thick with the characters as they searched for Constance. Few books can really do that, in my opinion, and this is one of the best.
Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable at times, but Bradbury is out of his element here
Review: Ray Bradbury's murder mystery novel "Let's All Kill Constance" opens with the words "It was a dark and stormy night." Bradbury playfully winks at his readers with this notoriously (albeit intentionally) cliched introduction, letting us in on the joke of the novel: "Let's All Kill Constance" is a murder mystery, yes, but a murder mystery played out as high camp, all poetic hyperbole and exaggeration. When aging film star Constance Rattigan appears at an unnamed writer's beachfront bungalow (the writer is a barely-disguised younger version of Bradbury himself) with two "Books of the Dead", Bradbury finds himself plunged into a mysterious world of Tinseltown ghosts. Someone is trying to scare Constance by dredging up these ghosts from her past; the books she discovered list long-forgotten friends and acqaintances--many dead or close to death--with Constance's name appearing among them. Bradbury and Constance both comprehend the unspoken threat: Constance may be the next to die. It's up to Bradbury to figure out who's behind this macabre plot, and quickly... before Constance's past finally catches up with her--for good. With his (often unwilling) sidekick, Elmo Crumley, in toe, Bradbury searches everywhere for clues to the mystery and Rattigan's past. Along the way, he crosses paths with a host of strange characters: a decrepit man who lives amid reams of ancient newsprints; an immense fortune teller, Queen Califia, who holds many secrets of her own; a fearful priest who presides over St. Vibiana's Cathedral; and an ancient film projectionist who surrounds himself with scenes from Hollywood's golden years. As Bradbury delves deeper into the mystery, he learns that nothing is what it seems, and there is no telling what secrets ultimately lie buried deep below Grauman's Chinese movie theater--and beyond. This novel is Bradbury's third (after "Death Is a Lonely Business" and "A Graveyard for Lunatics") foray into the mystery/detective genre, and unfortunately, it's his least successful. As always, Bradbury writes in an archly poetic style, but here that style is exaggerated to the point of parody. The novel is a quick read, weighing in at a scant 210 pages; chapters end almost before they begin and there is a rushed feeling to the proceedings. Bradbury doesn't allow his readers any chance to savor the plot, as he seems intent on quickly rushing from scene to scene while introducing new characters (all of whom speak with a rat-a-tat, hard-boiled sameness that robs them of any emotion). In the end, "Let's All Kill Constance" manages to feel both drawn-out and not fleshed-out enough. I'm an admirer of Bradbury's work and I eagerly looked forward to this book after hearing about its release, but ultimately, I was disappointed by it. The situations and characters do not feel realistic or involving. More to the point, Bradbury's overly stylized approach, which is typically so engaging, does not do this book justice. If you're interested in exploring one of Bradbury's more successful attempts at this genre, I would recommend reading the wonderful "Death Is a Lonely Business".
Rating:
Summary: Old Hollywood mystery intrigues and delights.
Review: Ray Bradbury, celebrated author of modern classics such as "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles", brings us a mystery running in 1960 set amidst the backdrop of a bygone Hollywood when Eric Von Stroheim held sway.
An unnamed writer, the narrator of the novel, begins the suspense with the cliché, "It was a dark and stormy night." Constance Rattigan, an aging former starlet, hastily gives the unnamed writer two books - a 1900 Los Angeles phone book and her old address book - both containing red-circled entries with crosses that suggest who will die next; Rattigan is one of the names circled.
Some of the names circled begin to die suddenly under suspect circumstances while Rattigan concurrently becomes difficult to find. Is she the next victim or the murderer? The unnamed writer becomes obsessed with procuring answers. Entertaining sidekicks like Crumley, a lovable grouch, and Henry, a blind man that invariably sees more than everyone, accompany the unnamed writer's search within fast-paced engaging dialog.
Brief chapters - many five pages or less - and simple word usage are effective throughout the novel. The climax is unclear as many twists abound, a given in a Bradbury production - remember the fireman Guy Montag from "Fahrenheit 451" who starts fires? Bradbury dazzles and boggles the mind till the final pages.
Rating:
Summary: A labrinyth of mystery
Review: The novel is very much a Bradbury one-surreal, inventive and always esoteric, full of trivia and various Hollywood references. In fact, esoteric is the keyword. You either enjoy Bradbury's quirky, offbeat style of plot (and I should add that this one if particularly quirky, quite unlike most plots) or you don't. At it's best, this novel is rather good-there are some wonderfully memorable moments, including a trip to "a labrinyth of newsprint" that is reminescent of the library parts of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes". It's not Bradbury's best, but it is certainly not his worst, and is above average.
Rating:
Summary: This fascinating novel is not to be missed!
Review: There's a new Bradbury book out. Oh...I'm sorry. Are you still here? You need to know more than that? Well, I'm not really qualified to say more than that. Or, if I am qualified, let's say I'm not worthy. When I opened the manila envelope and LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE fell out, with the word "BRADBURY" across the top in big capital letters --- not "Ray Bradbury," just "BRADBURY" --- it struck me that this giant, this scribe, this national treasure has been writing classic stories for over 60 years now. People have been born, come of age, had children and passed of old age in that time and he is still writing ---and writing well. But you knew that already. Well, if you haven't read LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE, you might not be aware of the last point. So let me delay you for just another minute. LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE continues in the tradition of Bradbury's previous mystery novels, DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS and A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS. The setting is once again Venice, California in the early 1950s and the narrator is a young, unnamed screenwriter who is, in fact, Bradbury. Bradbury actually has the chutzpah to begin LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE with the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night..." and actually has the talent to successfully bring it off --- in spades. On this particular dark and stormy night the narrator hears a tapping at his door and discovers Constance Rattigan, an aged, once-beautiful film star, bearing two worn telephone books that contain the names of Hollywood personalities, most of whom have passed over to the other side of the curtain. There are a few who are living but are also marked for death --- and one of them is Constance. The screenwriter enlists the aid of private detective Elmo Crumley ... and together they attempt to trace the owners of the names that are marked for death. More often than not, however, they find that they are, rather than too late, too early. Bradbury uses their search as a vehicle for a tour of Los Angeles, not only in the geographical sense, but also in a nostalgic one. While he mourns the glamour of the past, Constance seeks to escape it. Along the way, the reader sees the glitter of the facades as well as the alleys that run behind them. They are, as Bradbury demonstrates, inexorably intertwined. LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE is a mystery, yes, but Bradbury also injects element of satire, celebration and fantasy into the mix. He also, quite cleverly, references one of his best-known novels, though if you blink you'll miss it. Bradbury's ability to intersect mystery and fantasy --- and fantasy with reality --- remains as sharp and as engrossing as ever. LET'S ALL KILL CONSTANCE is not to be missed. ...
Rating:
Summary: LET'S ALL RAISE A TOAST TO MR. BRADBURY
Review: This latest installment (DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS, A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS) in the adventures of Ray's unnamed alter-ego hero is, like its predecessors, many things: a detective story, a phantasmagoria of the incredible characters that populate Ray's world, and, perhaps most of all, a love song to Los Angeles as only Ray can envision it - a place where the mundane and the utterly fantastic can walk arm-in-arm down the boulevard of Mr. Bradbury's unique imagination. He is one of a kind.
Rating:
Summary: LET'S ALL RAISE A TOAST TO MR. BRADBURY
Review: This latest installment (DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS, A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS) in the adventures of Ray's unnamed alter-ego hero is, like its predecessors, many things: a detective story, a phantasmagoria of the incredible characters that populate Ray's world, and, perhaps most of all, a love song to Los Angeles as only Ray can envision it - a place where the mundane and the utterly fantastic can walk arm-in-arm down the boulevard of Mr. Bradbury's unique imagination. He is one of a kind.
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