CeCe is a mystery biographer and vintage clothing enthusiast. After calling off her wedding, she opts to keep the honeymoon plans and go alone. Her goal is to complete a biography of film director Alfred Hitchcock. One night she goes to the Orpheum theater to watch Hitchcock's classic film Vertigo. Returning home from the theater she discovers that somehow she has two cell phones in her possession, one belonging to a stranger. In her endeavor to be a good citizen she sets out to return the phone, finding that it belongs to a woman named Anita Colby. When she is able to track down Anita's whereabouts, she unwittingly witnesses a man push a woman off a cliff. As CeCe proceeds to call 911, she receives a call on her phone instructing her to lie to the police telling them instead that she witnessed an accident. Before she leaves the crime scene, CeCe discovers an ID belonging to Anita Colby and concludes that it was Anita she saw fall to her death. When the police show up, Cece is placed under suspicion. Although CeCe has many policemen in her family, she decides not tell them all that she knows and begins investigating the crime herself...An entertaining, fun book. Alfred Hitchcock fans will enjoy Kandel's Cece Caruso mystery as CeCe's life takes a Hitchcockian turn after witnessing murder. Great book! Read it. Lots of fun details about Alfred Hitchcock and written à la Hitch. The protagonist is a mystery auteur biographer named Cece Caruso. Every biography she researches involves an intricate mystery of its own and is written in the style of the auteur. Fun trivia and great back story behind the movie industry and mystery fiction. Susan Kandel is such a clever author. So far, she's written in the style of: Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason), Dashiell Hammett (Sam Spade), and Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew). Her first in this series was "I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason" and was nominated for an Agatha Award for best first novel, deservedly. I was happy to learn her next book was to be on Hitch—I love watching and re-watching his movies. This was like having a new Hitch movie to go "see" in my mind's eye; I enjoyed it thoroughly and I hope you do too.
What do You think about Dial H For Hitchcock (2009)?
This one and "I dreamed I Married Perry Mason" are the best ones in her series.
—jrw
