Columbo: The Glitter Murder [Hardcover]

William Harrington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997 | Series: Columbo

The lovable television detective returns to tackle a case involving the death of famed motion-picture director Dunnar Svan, who appears to have been murdered during a routine robbery, but Columbo senses foul play.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harrington's fifth Columbo mystery (following The Game Show Killer) sets the LAPD homicide lieutenant the task of unmasking the murderer who slew Gunnar Svan, film director, philanderer, embezzler. Following the pattern of the long-running TV series, Harrington lets the reader in on the secret by revealing the murderer as the crime is planned and executed. The pleasure, according to the Columbo formula, is supposed to come from watching the rumpled cop match wits with the killer. Harrington's cast of suspects includes Ai-Ling Cooper-Svan, the victim's beautiful, powerful wife, who is publisher and editor-in-chief of the Hollywood monthly Glitz; a 17-year-old starlet, Ingrid Karlsen, willingly seduced by Svan; Piers Karlsen, the starlet's outraged father; a mobster named Jacky Di Giacomo; and others. As Columbo uncovers clues and discards red herrings, the desperate killer squirms. The lieutenant's quirky charms-the ever-present raincoat; half-smoked cigars; his beat-up but beloved Peugeot-have been given great visual definition by actor Peter Falk for 25 years. Harrington does his best to transfer them to the printed page, but this time Falk's charm is noticeably absent. Without the suspense of discovery and without Falk's merry wrinkles, this Columbo bogs down in generic Hollywood caricatures.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ai-Ling Cooper Svan seemingly has it all: great wealth, a job she loves as the publisher of Glitz (read Vanity Fair), and marriage to renowned Swedish film director Gunnar Svan. But all's not well in paradise. Gunnar is a satyr, and everyone knows Ai-Ling is being two-timed. But when Gunnar's nocturnal forays involve a street hooker and an underage girl, Ai-Ling decides to kill him--which she does, confident that no common civil servant could put her behind bars. But she doesn't count on Columbo. As always, the rumpled LAPD detective pokes, prods, scratches his unruly hair, and inevitably, peeks his head back around the corner to mumble, "Just one more thing, ma'am." Harrington continues to turn out superior entertainment with these print adaptations of the much-loved TV series. Put it this way: if there hadn't already been a Columbo television show, Harrington's novels are good enough to have producers putting one together. Wes Lukowsky

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 221 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st edition (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312861613
• ISBN-13: 978-0312861612
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,068,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Columo does it again, February 15, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Columbo: The Glitter Murder (Hardcover)

Film director Gunnar Svan has made many enemies in his lifetime. Even his spouse, magazine owner Ai-Ling Cooper-Svan, who calls him "Top Gun", is irate with him. It is bad enough that he has affairs with half the Hollywood starlets, but the Chinese-American woman is livid because her accountants confirmed that Gunnar embezzled, cheated and conned money out of her. Other people were also taken for a ride. So it is not surprising to anyone who knows Gunnar that he is murdered. Los Angeles homicide Lieutenant Columbo, along with other police officers and forensic experts, is at the murder scene where the corpse of the film director lies. Everyone, except for Columbo, is in agreement that this is an obvious case of a robbery gone bad. The detective starts questioning his list of suspects, hoping to trap the killer in a paradoxical lie. If Columbo fails to uncover the truth, this case will go down as an unsolved robbery-murder. William Harrington is a very good mystery writer, who in his fifth Columbo novel successfully sticks to the Columbo script of telling who the killer is early in the book and allowing Columbo to match wits with the murderer. COLUMBO: THE GLITTER MURDER is an interesting tale, but like the previous four Columbo novels, the book lacks Peter Falk who is Columbo. Though the novel is well written and enjoyable, this reviewer suggests you watch the TV re-runs if you want the true flavor of Columbo. Harriet Klausner

1.0 out of 5 stars Not the Columbo We Know and Love, June 4, 2006

By 

SylvesterFox007 (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Columbo: The Glitter Murders (Mass Market Paperback)

Usually, the moment the seemingly befuddled Lt. Columbo makes his subtle, unobtrusive entrance to a crime scene is a treat. In William Harrington's "The Glitter Murder", it's the moment the whole book goes downhill. The book opens in the tradition of the beloved TV series "Columbo", with the introduction of a soon-to-be-murderer. In this case, it's Ai-Ling Cooper-Svan, a respected magazine editor plotting against Gunnar Svan, an independent filmmaker and her louse of a husband, with the assistance of her psychologist and illicit lover. The murder plot and its execution are promising, but then Lt. Columbo is bluntly introduced into the plot, and Harrington's novel loses its entertainment value.

The problem is Harrington shows a very poor understanding of what made the Columbo series so popular. Firstly, the character of Columbo is all wrong. Part of what made Columbo so endearing on television was the sense that there was much more to him than there appeared. Harrington tries to understand what makes Columbo tick and fails. He gives readers a look inside Columbo's head, and it's disappointing to find out there's no more to his version of Columbo than we see on the surface. His Columbo wears the trench coat and smokes the cigars, but all of the traits that really made him entertaining are butchered here. Harrington even spoils the mystery of Mrs. Columbo's existence, one of the constant joys of the television series. The book seems truer to the series it was based on when Ai-Ling is present than whenever Columbo is.

Secondly, Harrington doesn't seem to grasp that Columbo is all about a cat-and-mouse game. He gives Columbo an intriguing opponent in the form of Ai-Ling Cooper-Svan, but then fails to bring them together more often than brief, periodic encounters throughout the novel, and when they are brought together, there's no chemistry between them. Instead, Harrington drags one unnecessary supporting character after another into the plot. Some contribute next to nothing to the plot, very few are intriguing, yet all have first and last names. The author also drags in worthless subplots involving molestation and prostitution. The emphasis should be on Columbo and the murderess.

Finally, Harrington's novel misses that one crucial, intangible element that made the series effective despite always revealing the killer in the beginning. Columbo always claimed to be overly thorough and methodical, but in actuality he was always perpetually hounding the one person he knew to be the guilty party. Harrington's Columbo prefers to spend most of his time discrediting red-herrings and false leads, something very frustrating when the reader already know the truth behind the mystery, something even more insufferable when Columbo reveals his suspicions early on in the novel but refuses to follow his instincts. Towards the end, Harrington even has the unflappable lieutenant second-guessing himself. Then, in what's meant to be the brilliant twist ending, Columbo catches his killer with a piece of evidence that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. As a final insult, Harrington tacks on an epilogue that belongs to an episode of "Dragnet", not "Columbo." Harrington has boiled the brilliant formula of the Columbo series into a dry police procedural less entertaining than the most sub par episodes of the "Columbo" TV series.