Customer Reviews

Blue Suede Clues: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley

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A fabulous installment in this terrific series. Elvis Presley does the sleuthing!

Freddy "Squirm" Littlejohn sent Elvis a letter and photo. The photo was from four years ago when Elvis was in Germany in the army. It was of Elvis singing with other Army guys at Christmas. Squirm was one of them. His letter asked for Elvis' help. Squirm was serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Holly McDougal had been strangled on the MGM lot.

Elvis went to the California Correction Institution in Tehachapi to see Squirm. He met Bob Reardon, warden of CCI. After his discussion with Squirm, the warden gave Elvis a script. In a recent interview Elvis had asked for a first-class script.

Then Elvis contacted Regis Clifford, Squirm's lawyer. Elvis quickly concluded that Regis was a drinker. He discussed Squirm's case. He found out that a makeup artist named Connie Spinelli had told Regis that Holly McDougal was a wild kid. She said that she `made a stripper blush to her ankles.' Unfortunately when Regis went to meet with Spinelli, she had vanished.

He also told Elvis that Miss Nanette Poulette, Squirm's girlfriend, had given some damning testimony against him which seemed to seal his fate.

Elvis asked around about Spinelli and finally got someone to talk to him. He then called his buddy Billy Jackson and asked for his help in contacting her.

Elvis went to the stunt shack on the MGM lot. He met Will Cathcart, a stuntman and rodeo rider. He showed Elvis around including the bunk room where Holly had died. Will had not been around then. He also gave Elvis a trial ride on Nelly, the stuntman's mistrees, a harness. While dangling from the harness, he met Mickey Grieves, Squirem's good buddy who had referred Squirm to his attorney.

I won't tell you anymore. You'll have to read to find out how Elvis keeps digging and digging to find out the truth behind the strangling of Holly McDougal. So many times I had to remind myself that Elvis never did all this investigation. It is written so well and with such believability and history interwoven, that I often forget it's fiction.

Mr. Klein has done a great job in catching the true essence of Elvis and using it in his books.

I highly recommend this book and the whole series.

t's 1963 and Elvis Presley is so bored with movie-making that when he gets a letter from a convict claiming his innocence, Elvis decides to check things out. What Elvis finds is a Hollywood full of wanna-be stars, each willing to do anything to make it big--anything including murder. The ex-stunt man, Squirm Littlejon might not have killed his prostitute girlfriend, but he certainly did make some powerful enemies. Enemies that wouldn't stop at killing him--and destroying Elvis--to protect their secrets.

Author Daniel Klein does a convincing job making Elvis both believable as a detective and likable as a person. It is amusing to think of Elvis rolling around Los Angeles in the early 1960s, solving crimes and trying to decide where to take his life. Klein adds enough topical references to satisfy the Elvis buff and to educate non-fans on this intriguing and conflicted character.

With a title like BLUE SUEDE CLUES and with Elvis as detective, I was expecting something funny but, while there are definitely some light moments, for the most part, Klein plays it straight. Elvis battles pain from a sprained ankle with too much codeine, risks his life, witnesses murder and suicide, and sinks deep into a world of blackmail, prostitution, and murder. Klein's smooth writing keeps the plot moving forward and hold's the reader's attention.

Elvis takes on his second case in BLUE SUEDE CLUES. Bringing back some of his new friends that we first met in KILL ME TENDER along with some of the historical characters in his life like Colonel Tom Parker and Priscilla and even Ann Margaret, who I am sure would love these stories.
I disagree that many who will read Mr. Klein's works are looking for him to provide "the idiosynchrasies of the superstar". Lord knows there are enough books out that deal with those. I think that Mr. Klein has tapped the real "heart" of Elvis, that he has done his homework, and that his "Elvis" isn't just "anyman amateur sleuth" but the real Elvis taking on the new role of sleuth.
For any Elvis fan these stories put him "back in the building", and for those who don't know Elvis, they historically tell the story of the Elvis who wanted to make a difference, with the added fictional twist of solving mysteries on top of being a superstar, in an age where racial differences were still considered problems and Hollywood still owned the both the star and the public. When the world wasn't sure they wanted the change Elvis could bring and Elvis was sure we needed some changing.
I think these mysteries, like those of Kinky Friedman, are written to be read for the pure joy of them.
I have read them both and cannot wait for the third installment where I can kick back and relax and spend some more time with the king of rock 'n' roll and maybe help someone new while we're there.

In Blue Suede Clues you get three for the price of one: a murder mystery, interesting facts about Elvis, and a psychological thriller. Serious suspense, of the kind that makes you stay up later than you had planned, mingles with amusing details from Elvis's real life. However, as a psychiatrist I found the psychological part of the plot the most fascinating. Dan Klein's portrait of Elvis struggling to reconcile his spiritual ideals with the reality of Hollywood (and sex) was both convincing and emotionally engaging. Will he succeed? That's one of the mysteries and I won't tell you what happens.

In 1963 on the last day of shooting of Kissin Cousins, Elvis feels embarrassed by the movie, his dual roles, and the inane songs. Adding to Elvis' feelings of helplessness is the media frenzy over his romance with his co-star Ann Margaret and the left-handed comments of his current producer. At a press conference, Elvis makes it clear that with a good script he would provide a strong performance.

However, his angst-laden soliloquy backfires, as every lunatic sends in an "Oscar winning" script. The deluge is just one more reason to escape the Colonel, Priscilla, and the media. Elvis chooses the only interesting item amidst the flood, the case of stuntman Freddy "Squirm" Littlejon as his escape vehicle. Squirm is serving a life sentence for the 1960 Hollywood murder of a bit player, Holly McDougal. Squirm includes a picture of himself with Elvis in military uniforms. Elvis takes on the case as a means of escaping his troubles and because he feels a special bond with stuntmen and veterans; Squirm is both. Elvis begins his second investigation (see KILL ME TENDER for his first case).

The premise of BLUE SUEDE CLUES is that a troubled Elvis turns to amateur sleuthing for relief from his woes. The story line is fun for those readers who enjoy the mystery of sighting Elvis in a mall, but the idiosyncrasies of the superstar never surface; the reason many will want to read this novel. Instead Elvis could easily be John Doe, everyman amateur sleuth. The investigation is fun, but except for those in the audience who live Graceland, sub-genre readers will return to author Daniel Klein disappointed.

Harriet Klausner

I can sympathize with the author when it comes to writing a series centered around a historical figure. It's doubly- or triply-difficult when that figure is Elvis. Not just Napoleon or Kutuzov (as another reader referred to); they're ghostly figures that a typical modern American reader would barely recognize (especially Kutuzov), let alone identify with.

But Elvis? More than a personage; much more.

Still, Daniel Klein has done an admirable job of placing Elvis in a setting that sweeps the reader along, in a story that is best read quickly. The book is a kind of literary beignet--best enjoyed now, because tomorrow, it won't be so tasty.

What I liked about "Kill Me Tender" was that is struck me as more than just a "gimmick" novel. I got a sense of Elvis the person--not in a true a biographical sense, perhaps, but at least the author's sympathetic sense of Elvis as a young man.

In "Blue Suede Clues", I was a little disappointed to find more of a caricature, in a plot that was a little weaker than I'd hoped (including a very obvious subplot).

Still, it was a fun read, and I have to give Daniel Klein a lot of credit for taking on this project and doing as well as he has.

Daniel Klein did it again. Like Kill Me Tender, Blue Suede Clues is a true pageturner in spite of the fact that real life Elvis was not a detective and hardly could be one. Can a real life character be a fictional character, and how close they can grow, or how far they can depart? Every Russian (like myself) had read War and Peace where Commander-in-Chief Kutuzov, czar Alexander I and Napoleon Bonaparte were both, historical characters and fictional characters at once. Leo Tolstoi kept their images recognizable but didn't pursue their life-true portrayal. Instead, he used them for expressing his ideas regarding war and peace.

Blue Suede Clues cannot be compared to War and Peace, but in the latter case, the function of a famous character is the same. It expresses Klein's ideas about the subject of his mystery, the loss of humanity in a morally declining society.

Even Elvis cannot help Littlejohn, a victim of the corrupted justice system. As the mystery unfolds, the unholy power games escalate so forcefully that Elvis himself is caught by the net of intrigues. And Klein lets the forgotten Littlejohn to take care of himself by his own means. Littlejohn escapes and flees abroad. In the name of a traditional resolution, Elvis wins the battle against the evil by unmasking the judge, the twin brother of Littlejohn's attorney. Of course, the evil judge is the killer who framed Littlejohn. When unmasked judge takes his life -- evil is conquered. But it is a bitter victory. On the last page, Elvis learns that president Kennedy has been shot, and book ends with the words, "...he reached into his pocket for his bottle of painkillers." Who really won? Did Elvis conquer the evil, or the evil society conquered Elvis? Who will win at the end? As a matter of fact, the dark backdrop of Blue Suede Clues with its identical twin theme (one unit good versus one unit evil) leaves the battle unresolved. I cannot wait to learn, how Daniel Klein will handle this situation in his next installment of Elvis Presley mysteries...