Customer Reviews

Actor (Stanley Hastings Mystery, #8)

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4 star:		(1)
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I am in the process of collecting all of the Stanley Hastings books in hardcover. I have read them all and he is the most entertaining sleuth in the business. His reluctance at being drawn into the mystery makes the plots all the more irresistable and as a result, they are not predictable. He makes me laugh out loud...never have I read a more charming character.

I have read at least five other books featuring the unique Stanley Hastings, but this one is special because of the different setting. Instead of his usual ambulance-chasing, Stanley gets to play a major part in a production of "Arms and the Man". I had read the play long ago, and that added to my enjoyment of the book. Rarely has a protagonist risen so triumphantly over countless humiliating circumstances; you have to admire the almost masochistic determination of actors who put up with all he describes in hilarious, but still almost depressing detail. Ambulance-chasing in the Bronx seems a picnic compared to Stanley's experiences in this book.

PI Stanley Hastings is called by an old college buddy to fill in for an actor who died right before opening night of ARMS AND THE MAN in a tiny New England town. The stage manager promptly gets himself murdered, and Stanley has to help Chief Bob (an amateur actor himself) find the killer. The search is a comically depressing examination of backstage life and midlife crisis that leaves the reader amazed at Stanley's emotional resilience.

The amount of theatrical detail Hall included was impressive, and I enjoyed his use of internal dialogue, which ranks right up there with Lawrence Block's. And it's the rare mystery author who can sneak a Pinter joke into the dialogue like Hall does. I did find Stanley's hang-up on the spelling of the word "actor" mildly distracting, but it would take an awful lot more than that to detract from the fun of this book.

PI Stanley Hastings is called to a community theater outside NYC to do a favor for a friend and appear in a play he had performed in twenty years before. He does so but, in the process,
discovers a corpse onstage. This is the first of Parnell Hall's books I have read; I have assured myself it was not the last by ordering all on Kindle for $2.99 or less. Those set by the publisher at a standard paperbound price less a small discount, I have disregarded.
Stanley Hastings, Mr. Hall's hero in this series, is a nervous, impulsive, somewhat awkward, somewhat down at the heels, private investigator for what amounts to the nether reaches of that profession. He digs up evidence for an attorney who handles accidents and anything else that may come his way; that is, he is a general practitioner in law, not a Perry Mason (who was a top trial lawyer with a taste for the occasional odd case that intrigued him). In this book, Hastings, his hero, is the narrator, drawing nicely rounded portraits of his friend, the one who brought him into the setting, his friends partner, and a few assorted members of the cast and apprentices. The identity of the rest faded quickly from my mind as they did from Hastings memory. The most clearly drawn of the protagonists was the Chief of Police, who also occasional takes a walk-on part in a play put on by Hastings friend, director of the community theater productions. His many interchanges with The Hero make up a large part of the book; they make up a good part of the amusement for the reader and frustrat,,ion for Hastings.
All-in-all, while there are some rough spots in terms of a tightly knit work, there is a good deal of pleasure to be found for the average mystery reader. The author writes like the experienced professional he must be (what with the number of publisher screened books he has written). I commend this book as a good one to start (or continue) reading the author's series. The price on these kindle books is right; whether the higher price recent ones which are also published in the old fashioned manner, are worth it, I will have a better idea as I read the ones still in the $0.99-2.99 category (as of this writing).