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The Lady in the Silver Cloud (Stewart Hoag Mysteries)

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"This is confection in the guise of a mystery novel; it goes down easy as a milkshake."—Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

A 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud is a fantastically expensive car, especially in the pristine condition of the one owned by Muriel Cantrell. Living in a luxury apartment building on Central Park West, the delicate, sweet 75-year-old woman is a neighbor of Merilee Nash, the beautiful movie star, and Stuart Hoag, whose first book was a sensation but whose career crashed when he became involved with drugs and alcohol. Divorced ten years earlier, Hoagy has been welcomed back into Merilee's life and apartment.

Apparently universally beloved in her building, residents are shocked when Muriel is murdered after a Halloween party. No one takes it harder than her long-time chauffeur, Bullets Durmond, whose previous job was as an enforcer for the mob. Who in the world would want to harm the silver-haired lady whose major vices were buying shoes and Chanel suits (always in cash), and watching day-time soap operas?

Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD is called to investigate and again seeks help from his friend Hoagy who, along with his basset hound Lulu, has been an invaluable aide in the past. The investigation leads to the unexpected source of Muriel's wealth, the history of her early years as a hatcheck girl at the Copacabana, how her chauffeur came to be called Bullets, her desperate meth-head nephew, and her wealthy neighbors, who have secrets of their own.

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    • Kirkus

      December 15, 2021
      Headline news: Movie star Merilee Nash wants her ex, sometime novelist Stewart Hoag, back! There are a couple of murders, too. Halloween 1993 finds Merilee still off shooting The Sun Also Rises and Hoagy holed up in the Central Park West apartment she's graciously loaned him, writing away furiously. Gary Kates, one of Merilee's neighbors on the 16th floor, is a corporate raider who's brought misery to hardworking families across America by buying companies and brutally downsizing their workforces. He's such a natural candidate for murder that it's a double shock when Muriel Cantrell, an aging widow who's nice as peach cobbler, is found with a broken neck on the 15th floor landing of the service stairs. Nobody from first-shift doorman Frank O'Brien to Bullets Durmond, the mobbed-up ex-bouncer who's driven Muriel around for years in her 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, has an unkind word to say about her. But that's before detective Lt. Romaine Very and Hoagy, who ruefully and repeatedly describes himself as "the first major new literary voice of the 1980s," begin digging into her past. Hoagy, euphoric to find Merilee not only suddenly returned from the shoot after her director's been fired over creative differences, but openly eager to get back together, is especially motivated to help Very uncover the skeletons in the closets of Muriel, her old friend Myrna Waldman in Glen Cove, and pretty much everyone else who's ever passed through her gloriously upscale building. There are so many suspects, in fact, that the big reveal is more like a little squib. Adultery, blackmail, trick-or-treaters, unseemly ties to organized crime, and New York in the 1990s. What's not to like?

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 20, 2021
      Set in 1993, Edgar winner Handler’s quaint 13th Stewart Hoag mystery (after 2021’s The Man Who Wasn’t All There) finds ghostwriter Stewart and his dog, Lulu, temporarily living in the luxury apartment on Central Park West owned by his accommodating ex-wife, Merilee Nash, a “gorgeous blonde Oscar and Tony Award–winning actress.” When Merilee’s neighbor, Muriel Cantrell, “an exquisitely delicate, silver-haired lady in her early ’70s,” is found dead in a stairwell of the building after a Halloween party, Stewart and Lulu join Lt. Romaine Very of the NYPD to investigate. Eccentric suspects include a ruthless corporate raider, a Park Avenue socialite who dabbles in fashion design, a composer who aspires to being the next Stephen Sondheim, lawyers with mob connections, and a former cigarette girl at a swanky nightclub. Muriel, meanwhile, turns out not to have been the wealthy widow she seemed. Stewart’s mildly charming narration makes up only in part for an obvious resolution that’s followed by his telling all sorts of people whodunit yet again. Those already invested in Stewart and friends will best appreciate this outing. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2022
      It's 1993, and Stewart Hoag, the formerly up-and-coming novelist, has (sort of) reunited with Merilee, from whom he divorced a decade earlier. Now living in Merilee's New York apartment while she's off shooting her latest movie, Hoagy, like his neighbours, has grown quite fond of elderly Muriel Cantrell, the oldest resident in the building. And, like everyone else, he's shocked when Muriel is killed by an unknown assailant. The police soon ask Hoagy to assist in the investigation, and, as he digs deeper into Muriel's life, he uncovers one surprise after another. Muriel, it seems, was not merely the kindly senior citizen her neighbors had thought she was. Did her past finally catch up with her?The twelfth Stewart Hoag mystery is full of dark secrets and potential suspects, so many of each that they threaten to overwhelm Hoagy, although it should be noted that they never overwhelm author Handler, who keeps a sure hand on the steering wheel. Another fine entry in a popular series.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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