Alfred Hitchcock in the Vertigo Murders

Rating:
Summary: The Case of the Mysterious Author
Review: Daniel Auiler, who wrote a definitive book on the making of Hitchcock's "Vertigo", now uses that film (and film-maker) for a PI novel that is enjoyable enough and fun to read. The big mystery is why he uses the name J. Madison Davis as the author of the paperback edition of the book. The hardcover, due any minute, seems to use his real name, and the book is listed under that name in bookstore records. But the use of the Davis moniker tends to confuse would-be readers search and gets the book filed under "D" on many shelves. There must BE a reason, but... what is it?

Rating:
Summary: Hollywood has a new detective... therein lies the Hitch.
Review: I give a book 100 pages or one day, which ever comes second, before I make the decision to give up or keep reading. I finished this book only because it took me less than a day to read. Hitchcock is barely detectable in the book, hardly the detecive as the cover implies. He does the hiring of the ex-cop main character and "exposes" the murderer at the end but not much else. As to the title, the connection to the film is barely noticable other than it being the film that Hitch is directing at the time. [....]

Rating:
Summary: Great Book! Not enough Hitchcock
Review: I have to agree with the others who reviewed this book, that there isn't enough Hitchcock in the story. In a way it is misleading in the sense that you expect Hitchcock to do a lot of the detective work instead of the ex-cop but it is still a great book and I don't regret buying it!!

Rating:
Summary: misleading
Review: S. Bemer is in error. This fine mystery was written by J. Madison Davis. He lives! He is a professor in the College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma. He is the senior professor in the outstanding Professional Writing Program started in the late 1930s by the late Walter Campbell. Davis writes mysteries, and this is his latest, a fine piece of writing that moves like lighting and holds the reader's attention.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book! Not enough Hitchcock
Review: There were times while reading THE VERTIGO MURDERS that I got the distinct impression that the author was not expecting to get the required permission to insert Alfred Hitchcock into his story. Certainly the Master of Suspense has a very limited role in the book; he appears at the beginning and again at the end, while having only a handful of cameos during the bulk of the tale. During his brief appearances, he doesn't seem to be a terribly distinct character. Apart from dropping a lot of trivia about the films that he is busy with, one really doesn't feel as though we're dealing with the genuine article. Without Hitchcock, the book has very little to offer as compensation. It's entertaining for much of the duration, yet never memorably so, and there are several elements that pull this story down.

The book is heavily based upon the dime novels of the time in which it is set (the 1940s in Hollywood, California). Yet, interrupting this pastiche of the pulp genre are numerous raw (or perhaps "more modern" would be a better way to describe them) elements. Characters refer to female body parts in an explicit manner, discuss back alley abortions, and are occasionally more graphic than one would have expected had this actually been written during that era (this was published in 2000). Had these more realistic elements been seamlessly inserted into the narrative, then I think the effect could have been very interesting. After all, the advantage of writing in this style today is one can get away with discussing certain material that wouldn't have been permitted in that era. But in THE VERTIGO MURDERS, the attempt just isn't coherent enough to be truly effective. The modern elements are too jarring and distracting. One goes from cartoon violence, smack dab into intensely gritty realism, and then right back into the relatively innocuous world of pulp sleaze. It wasn't a bad idea, but the execution just didn't work for me.

The resolution of the story's big mystery comes as a disappointment. The ending makes logical sense, but it arrives completely out of nowhere. Really excellent mysteries often times will have the answer staring the reader right in the face. Clues work best when they're obvious enough for the audience to remember, but subtle enough not to give the game away before the final scene. Unfortunately in this book, the clues are buried in such a way that when the solution is revealed, one will be taking the book apart trying to discover the clues locked away in an obscure paragraph. While there are a few cheats where the author has kept some information hidden until the end, most of the facts are present; the solution just isn't all that satisfying.

All in all, this was a bit of a disappointment. There were certainly some fun parts of the book, and the journey that the investigator took was fairly interesting at times. But the plot was stretched far too thin for the amount of pages that it took up. While the book boasted some huge margins and large spaces between lines (it almost looks like double spacing), it could have done with a handful of major edits to get rid of some of the excess material. On the other hand, I did like the team of Hollywood director and ex-cop that was set up at the end. I wouldn't mind reading further mysteries and adventures of this pairing (the ending certainly sets up the possibility of there being more to come from these two), I would just hope that the plot and story that they find themselves in would be better thought out.

Rating:
Summary: I feel dizzy
Review: There were times while reading THE VERTIGO MURDERS that I got the distinct impression that the author was not expecting to get the required permission to insert Alfred Hitchcock into his story. Certainly the Master of Suspense has a very limited role in the book; he appears at the beginning and again at the end, while having only a handful of cameos during the bulk of the tale. During his brief appearances, he doesn't seem to be a terribly distinct character. Apart from dropping a lot of trivia about the films that he is busy with, one really doesn't feel as though we're dealing with the genuine article. Without Hitchcock, the book has very little to offer as compensation. It's entertaining for much of the duration, yet never memorably so, and there are several elements that pull this story down.

The book is heavily based upon the dime novels of the time in which it is set (the 1940s in Hollywood, California). Yet, interrupting this pastiche of the pulp genre are numerous raw (or perhaps "more modern" would be a better way to describe them) elements. Characters refer to female body parts in an explicit manner, discuss back alley abortions, and are occasionally more graphic than one would have expected had this actually been written during that era (this was published in 2000). Had these more realistic elements been seamlessly inserted into the narrative, then I think the effect could have been very interesting. After all, the advantage of writing in this style today is one can get away with discussing certain material that wouldn't have been permitted in that era. But in THE VERTIGO MURDERS, the attempt just isn't coherent enough to be truly effective. The modern elements are too jarring and distracting. One goes from cartoon violence, smack dab into intensely gritty realism, and then right back into the relatively innocuous world of pulp sleaze. It wasn't a bad idea, but the execution just didn't work for me.

The resolution of the story's big mystery comes as a disappointment. The ending makes logical sense, but it arrives completely out of nowhere. Really excellent mysteries often times will have the answer staring the reader right in the face. Clues work best when they're obvious enough for the audience to remember, but subtle enough not to give the game away before the final scene. Unfortunately in this book, the clues are buried in such a way that when the solution is revealed, one will be taking the book apart trying to discover the clues locked away in an obscure paragraph. While there are a few cheats where the author has kept some information hidden until the end, most of the facts are present; the solution just isn't all that satisfying.

All in all, this was a bit of a disappointment. There were certainly some fun parts of the book, and the journey that the investigator took was fairly interesting at times. But the plot was stretched far too thin for the amount of pages that it took up. While the book boasted some huge margins and large spaces between lines (it almost looks like double spacing), it could have done with a handful of major edits to get rid of some of the excess material. On the other hand, I did like the team of Hollywood director and ex-cop that was set up at the end. I wouldn't mind reading further mysteries and adventures of this pairing (the ending certainly sets up the possibility of there being more to come from these two), I would just hope that the plot and story that they find themselves in would be better thought out.

Rating:
Summary: Derivative but fun
Review: This struck me as very much of an imitation of Stuart Kaminsky's Toby Peters books. The first-person narrator is an ex-cop who spent some time in movie studio security and then sets up as a private investigator; the milieu is Hollywood; and there's significant use of real (albeit now dead) people in the book. There are differences, of course. The book is set in 1957 rather than the early '40s. Chess Slattery doesn't have Toby Peters' bad back that's an ongoing theme of that series. Neither is exactly major. The closest thing to a major difference is that in this book Alfred Hitchcock not only employs Slattery--he also solves the mystery, with Slattery primarily providing the legwork. Briefly, an aspiring starlet is brutally murdered and mutilated. Hitchcock had seen her on the golf course behind his house the night after she was supposed to have been murdered, apparently being arrested by a couple of cops. He hires Slattery to help him find out what really happened. There are a couple more murders, along with significant involvement on the parts of Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak (the co-stars of Hitchcock's _Vertigo_, which is being filmed during the course of the book and gives it its title). It appears that the author may have a series in mind; at the end of the book Hitchcock proposes retaining Slattery as a steady employee. I can see books like The Psycho Murders, The Birds Murders, The Frenzy Murders-and so on following. (Hitchcock and Slattery didn't meet soon enough to have The Rope Murders or The Rear Window Murders, though...) The book is a good enough-if very fast-read, but too derivative to give very high marks to, or to keep.