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Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5)
 
 
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Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5) [Paperback]

Susan Kandel (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 27, 2009

Cece Caruso—mystery biographer extraordinaire, vintage clothing enthusiast, and part-time sleuth—is in freefall. First, she calls off her wedding, for reasons even she can't explain. Second, her newest biography (of Alfred Hitchcock) is way past deadline.

So Cece puts on a houndstooth suit with peplum and heads out to see Vertigo, only to come home with a cell phone belonging to a stranger named Anita Colby. Nothing if not a good citizen, Cece tries to return the cell phone—only to hear someone push Anita off a cliff.

Now a woman is dead, and Cece is under suspicion (tip: don't leave rambling, incoherent messages on someone's answering machine just before she gets murdered). To clear her name and put the real murderer in jail, Cece's going on the lam, where she'll encounter mysterious strangers, unhelpful strippers, a bottle of blond hair dye, and twists and turns so eerie it's as if Hitch himself were writing the script.


Frequently Bought Together

Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5) + Shamus in the Green Room (Cece Caruso Mysteries) + Christietown: A Novel About Vintage Clothing, Romance, Mystery, and Agatha Christie (Cece Caruso Mysteries)
Price For All Three: $30.74

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  • Christietown: A Novel About Vintage Clothing, Romance, Mystery, and Agatha Christie (Cece Caruso Mysteries) $11.86

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Alfred Hitchcock fans should love Kandel's fifth Cece Caruso mystery (after 2007's Christietown), a terrific tribute that's also wickedly funny. L.A. vintage fashionista Cece, who's just returned from her solo honeymoon after dumping LAPD Det. Peter Gambino, is researching a Hitchcock biography when her life takes a Hitchcockian turn. After watching a screening of Vertigo, she returns home to find someone else's cellphone in her purse. A curious call on the cellphone leads Cece to Beechwood Canyon, where she hopes to return it to its owner, Anita Colby. Instead, Cece winds up witnessing the cool blonde's murder. As Cece gets drawn deeper into a plot with alarming similarities to the celebrated director's noir masterpieces, she fears she's become a victim of identity theft as well as a dead ringer for the Kim Novak character in Vertigo. Kandel keeps the action tight all the way to a delightful denouement that Hitch no doubt would've appreciated. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Just back from a solo honeymoon, after canceling her wedding, Cece Caruso becomes embroiled in a devious plot that implicates her in a murder. Fortyish grandmother Cece, a Jersey girl relocated to L.A. who writes biographies of dead mystery authors, is researching Alfred Hitchcock when she finds a cell phone identical to hers in her purse. Her attempt to find the phone’s owner leads her to witness a man pushing a woman off a cliff, after which a call warns Cece to report the incident as an accident; then she finds a call recorded on the mysterious cell in which she herself threatens to kill the victim. Running just ahead of police to try to stay out of custody, she untangles the web with last-minute help from her former fiancé, LAPD detective Peter Gambino. The fifth in the Cece Caruso series is another breezy, entertaining entry. Brisk prose, a pistol of a protagonist, and nice riffs on Hitch—both biographical and psychological—more than compensate for an overly contrived plot. --Michele Leber

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; 1 edition (October 27, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0061826677
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061826672
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hitch Himself Would Approve, October 27, 2009
By 
Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5) (Paperback)
Taking your honeymoon alone is not recommended. Just ask Cece Caruso. She's just returned from a lonely cruise after calling off her wedding. And she's returned to find herself facing a deadline on her biography of suspense master director Alfred Hitchcock. So what does she do? She goes to a screening of Vertigo at an old theater in town.

The next morning, Cece finds someone else's cell phone in her purse. Trying to return it, she witnesses a murder. Then the killer calls her and warns her to keep quiet. As she begins to try to find out who is doing this to her, Cece continually finds herself one step behind...herself. What in the world is going on?

I've been watching a few Hitchcock films over the last couple of years since I knew he would be the subject for this book. As a result, I completely got it. The book is a classic Hitchcock set up, and it works brilliantly. While parts in the first third were a tad slow, I was hooked the entire time and couldn't wait to see how it ended. And how did it end? Well, I'm not going to give anything away, but I will say I absolutely loved it.

Since the point of the book was to isolate Cece, we don't get to see too much of the supporting cast. I missed them, but hopefully we'll get to see more of them soon in a later book.

There were some bits of humor to lighten the load as things progressed, but the further the story went, the more it focused on the mystery.

Even though the plot is very Hitchcockian, I do think fans of the series who aren't familiar with the director will enjoy the book as well. This is a great book that will keep you reading until the very last page.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars super amateur sleuth, October 28, 2009
This review is from: Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5) (Paperback)
After completing Christie (see Christietown), in Los Angeles biographer CeCe Caruso is way behind her deadline for the definitive bio on Hitchcock having wasted time on a single person's honeymoon after kicking police Detective Peter Gambino to the curb. A fan of the late filmmaker, she sees Vertigo. However, leaving the theater CeCe somehow has someone else's cell phone so turns around to return it.

CeCe travels to Beechwood Canyon to return the cell phone to its owner Anita Colby. There she sees someone push the owner off a cliff reminding her of Vertigo. When the police discover a message CeCe left Anita on her answering machine, she becomes their suspect in the murder.

The latest CeCe Caruso biography mystery is a super amateur sleuth tale that pays homage to the great director and his films throughout a taut investigation. Filled with jocularity, Susan Kandel keeps CeCe climbing into danger as she fears becoming a dead star in her own film without the accolades of one of the Hitchcock beauties. Fans of Hitchcock will relish Ms. Kandel's terrific tale of an innocent woman in a state of frenzy sought by a killer and the law (sounds so Hitchcockian).

Harriet Klausner
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5.0 out of 5 stars Dial H for Hitchcock, November 16, 2010
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This review is from: Dial H for Hitchcock (Cece Caruso Mystery #5) (Paperback)
This is the latest in a fun & funny mystery series, each one related to a famous crime writer (Alfred Hitchcock, Agatha Christie, etc.). I have read three so far. All were a pleasure to read. Really clever writing. Looking forward to the next in the series.
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