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I don't read "celebrity" books for the most part (okay, Martina Navratilova's books weren't bad). I was interested in Blue Moon because the co-author is the very talented author of the Benjamin Justice mysteries, John Morgan Wilson. From what I could see, it's going to have a gorgeous cover, and that might help it sell too. Alas, this book was too much celebrity and not enough mystery for me. I have little interest in the "high society" portrayed here, and while I have an interest in the time and place, it didn't work the way I had hoped.Ý Philip Damon, bandleader and pianist, son of another famous bandleader, has returned to San Francisco after several years. It's 1963 and Damon is still mourning his murdered wife Diana. His famous friends like Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote, George Plimpton think the trip will help. Settling in at the high class Fairmont Hotel, Damon spies a woman who looks exactly like Diana. When she appears at a performance of his band, suddenly the lights go out, and there's a scream. When the lights return, the doppelganger'sescort, Terrence Collier, is dead. Gee, how original. By the way, there's name dropping throughout the book, but it doesn't seem to serve much purpose except to show that Damon knows all these people. Mentioning movies and Broadway shows did little to enhance the mood either. The police officer assigned to the case is Inspector Hercules Platt, the only black inspector on the San Francisco police force. He's sneered at, told to mind his manners, and treated like crap by all the suspects. He's an interesting character, good at his job and determined to solve the crime, despite the attitudes of everyone including the supposedly good guy protagonist, and is one of the few people in this book I found even slightly likable and worth spending my time. Damon's hostess at the Fairmont Charlene, is a flighty and fairly stupid woman who keeps thinking that by reading mystery fiction she is Inspector Platt's peer. She is forever exclaiming things like "this is so exciting" at inappropriate times. The victim's ex-wife Vivian is a repulsive caricature of the scorned woman; drunk, with a gigolo escorting her everywhere, declaiming how wonderful it is that Terrance is dead. And Diana's double, well, let's just say I did not buy her reasons, no, her excuses for sleeping with Terrence Collier. I found her contemptible. As you can guess, I could not care who did it, and I found the resolution somewhat contrived and with questionable motives (maybe it's that it came fairly late). While reading, I spent a pleasant time in San Francisco, recognizing old joints and people from the years I lived across the bay, but some of it felt more like tourism tips than the real city - even though we were taken from Stinson Beach to Chinatown. And I was not amused by the clumsy reminders that we were in 1963, usually purveyed by comments like "some day, people will know the truth about Mao!" or "don't worry, rock and roll won't last". The reader, I imagine is supposed to feel the irony of such statements. I felt the thud. Charlene's "oh, well, some day, there will be a hard-boiled woman private eye book" and her endless ramblings about Margaret Millar and Patricia Highsmith might have been meant as homage, but they did not fit in the story or the dialogue. If you really read Margaret Millar and so many of the authors she adores, you'd know that listening is a great talent for sleuths, and her oblivious, blithe "oh, he appreciates my sleuthing" when Platt has clearly told her otherwise speaks to the air-headed ego of the wealthy types who refuse to hear anything that doesn't please them. The assumption that everyone loves them, is interested in their behavior and they can do no wrong - the reason "high society" turns me off was too common in this story and it just didn't work.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, August 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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