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Blow Hot, Blow Cold Audiobook by Ellery Queen
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Title: Blow Hot, Blow Cold
Author: Ellery Queen
Narrator: Rebecca Mitchell
Format: Unabridged
Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-29-14
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
There is an epidemic of death in the town. Lila Connor, neighborhood flirt and sex goddess, lay dead in her home, victim of a nill-placed letter opener. Larry Connor, successful accountant and distraught husband, lay dead in his office, slain by the giant Mickey Finn. And at Shady Acres, Nancy Howell is crazy wondering who killed Lila and Larry. Is a killer even now hidden in Shady Acres, waiting for a chance to slay again?
Members Reviews:
A VERY DISAPPOINTING BOOK BY THE USUALLY TALENTED ELLERY QUEEN
BLOW HOT, BLOW COLD (1964) by Ellery Queen (pen name of two cousins, Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) is a very poor short murder mystery. Most readers who are paying attention should be able to make a correct "educated guess" about the solution 50 to 60 pages before the book ends, but this novel is by no means a Fair-Play Puzzle.
The location of the action is never made clear, but we can assume that is it in a small town a few dozen miles from Kansas City, Missouri. Whether the town is in Missouri or Kansas is anyone's guess. Absolutely no "local color" is provided. The mystery's nine primary characters are, first, four upper middle class couples (all childless) who hang out together, sunbathing, playing golf, having cookouts in their yards, and engaging in a lot of drinking and flirting and a little bit of adultery, and then later (after one couple--Lila and Larry Connor--is found dead, apparently a murder-suicide case) Augustus Masters, a balding and supposedly comical-looking police lieutenant.
Roughly three-fourths the book focus on the actions and thoughts of two of these nine characters--the "ugly" police lieutenant, who is the professional investigator, and beautiful Nancy Howell, the smarter half of one of the surviving couples, who makes many discoveries on her own ... and who was perhaps half wittily named after Nancy Drew, the amateur girl detective. When they first meet, Lieutenant Masters has contempt for Nancy's brains, but gradually, as he transitions from boyish lust to a very strong boyish crush on her, he unprofessionally seeks out any excuse to get close to her.
The characters are essentially shallow stereotypes, shallowly portrayed, with few facets of their lives covered and few of their thoughts or words having much interest for readers. It's as though the sticky, oatmeal-like matrix of their lives has been created as a place for the authors to hide a small number of finely chopped walnut-like clues from us readers.
Furthermore, a huge plot hole (pertaining to a phone call that is NOT made, requesting an ambulance with medics for a poisoned man) seriously weakens the entire structure of the story.
In my judgment, this little mystery novel deserves a "D-" grade.
POSTSCRIPT: By coincidence, right after I got out of the Army, I worked on a graduate degree from 1965 to 1970 in a university town just a few dozen miles from Kansas City ... so I know the area well and also recall a great deal about the mores and habits of many sorts of people in that area. My own direct knowledge further increased my disappointment with this little book's shallowness.
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Title: Blow Hot, Blow Cold
Author: Ellery Queen
Narrator: Rebecca Mitchell
Format: Unabridged
Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-29-14
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
There is an epidemic of death in the town. Lila Connor, neighborhood flirt and sex goddess, lay dead in her home, victim of a nill-placed letter opener. Larry Connor, successful accountant and distraught husband, lay dead in his office, slain by the giant Mickey Finn. And at Shady Acres, Nancy Howell is crazy wondering who killed Lila and Larry. Is a killer even now hidden in Shady Acres, waiting for a chance to slay again?
Members Reviews:
A VERY DISAPPOINTING BOOK BY THE USUALLY TALENTED ELLERY QUEEN
BLOW HOT, BLOW COLD (1964) by Ellery Queen (pen name of two cousins, Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) is a very poor short murder mystery. Most readers who are paying attention should be able to make a correct "educated guess" about the solution 50 to 60 pages before the book ends, but this novel is by no means a Fair-Play Puzzle.
The location of the action is never made clear, but we can assume that is it in a small town a few dozen miles from Kansas City, Missouri. Whether the town is in Missouri or Kansas is anyone's guess. Absolutely no "local color" is provided. The mystery's nine primary characters are, first, four upper middle class couples (all childless) who hang out together, sunbathing, playing golf, having cookouts in their yards, and engaging in a lot of drinking and flirting and a little bit of adultery, and then later (after one couple--Lila and Larry Connor--is found dead, apparently a murder-suicide case) Augustus Masters, a balding and supposedly comical-looking police lieutenant.
Roughly three-fourths the book focus on the actions and thoughts of two of these nine characters--the "ugly" police lieutenant, who is the professional investigator, and beautiful Nancy Howell, the smarter half of one of the surviving couples, who makes many discoveries on her own ... and who was perhaps half wittily named after Nancy Drew, the amateur girl detective. When they first meet, Lieutenant Masters has contempt for Nancy's brains, but gradually, as he transitions from boyish lust to a very strong boyish crush on her, he unprofessionally seeks out any excuse to get close to her.
The characters are essentially shallow stereotypes, shallowly portrayed, with few facets of their lives covered and few of their thoughts or words having much interest for readers. It's as though the sticky, oatmeal-like matrix of their lives has been created as a place for the authors to hide a small number of finely chopped walnut-like clues from us readers.
Furthermore, a huge plot hole (pertaining to a phone call that is NOT made, requesting an ambulance with medics for a poisoned man) seriously weakens the entire structure of the story.
In my judgment, this little mystery novel deserves a "D-" grade.
POSTSCRIPT: By coincidence, right after I got out of the Army, I worked on a graduate degree from 1965 to 1970 in a university town just a few dozen miles from Kansas City ... so I know the area well and also recall a great deal about the mores and habits of many sorts of people in that area. My own direct knowledge further increased my disappointment with this little book's shallowness.