Customer Reviews

Hot and Bothered: A Bel Barrett Mystery

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fully tenured professor Bel Barret is giving a Faculty Development Seminar to new teachers on how to cope with their new students. At same time she is organizing the neighborhood block party and helping Sol, her significant other, cope with post-traumatic stress syndrome after seeing the World Trade Towers destroyed. Finally, she along with new neighborhood resident Eunice and two other neighbors, decide who is going to be awarded this year's scholarship for a semester at River Edge Community College in Jersey City.

Not too long after the block party, Eunice who moonlights as a stripper, is murdered. The police are looking at the nineteen-year-old student who didn't win the scholarship as a viable suspect. Sol wants Bel to figure out who the real killer is, as does the Dean of RECC and she gladly accommodates them because she doesn't want to see her young neighbor go to prison.

Most of HOT AND BOTHERED takes place in Hoboken, NJ one month after the events of Sept 11th and the people of that city can see where the two towers used to be. It affects everyone in a deep way but they all feel isolated and fearful. The heroine, who is in the process of major home repairs, does not want to leave the area and move to a quiet and isolated village as Sol keeps urging her to do. The investigation she conducts keeps her mind off her personal worries and involves her in something that she loves doing. Jane Isenberg knows how to write an excellent amateur sleuth novel with so many red herrings that reader will actually be totally shocked when the killer's identity is revealed.

Harriet Klausner

Picking up a new Bel Barrett mystery is a special treat for all those discerning readers who love a complex plot, but also like watching fascinating,continuing characters grow and change from book to book. In each book in this series, Jane Isenberg delivers both qualities--plus a great many smiles of rueful self-recognition along the way. In Hot and Bothered, Bel, Illuminada, Betty, Sol and the other midlife amateur sleuths we've come to know don't disappoint. They tackle a life-changing post-9/11 world and a close-to-home murder with seasoned skills and witty skepticism. This is a solid, well-crafted read, with surprising plot elements and reality-based character development. Isenberg's warm humor and unerring eye for human quirks keep interest alive from involving beginning to unexpected ending. If you haven't already met Bel and her crew, you have a satisfying series treat in store, starting with "The 'M' Word." And if you're already a Bel Barrett fan, you'll be as excited as I am to experience this timely foray into murder that combines the best of the courageous Big Apple (and environs)with a taste of its slightly sleazy underworld. Real people, real backgrounds, real mystery writing--it's all here. Hot and Bothered is cool and classy, indeed.

Bel Barrett is having a problem. Her home is being renovated, she's trying to get ready for the big block party, where she was one of the judges to give away a scholarship and her significant other Sol has gone insane.

He wants Bel to retire and for the two of them to move to the country, out of her beloved Hoboken.

The block party seems to go off ok, except for the small detail of Bel's fellow teacher, Eunice Goodson winding up dead.

It get's even stranger when Bel finds out that this conservatively dressed, Anatomy teacher spends her nights as a stripper.

Who could have done it? There certainly was a long enough list, her drug addict sister, her spurned hometown, preacher boyfriend, another teacher who seemed to spend a lot of time at the strip club. Or maybe it was the scholarship loser or her mother.

Or maybe it was just a nut.

Bel and her friends, Illuminada Gutrerrez, a private investigator and Betty Ramsey, personal assistant to the President of the college, decide to find out who would kill Eunice and stop them before they can kill again.

Highlights:

I've been lazy and didn't review all the books between the first book "The "M" Word" and this one. Overall, this series is very good.

Bel is great character. She's very serious about her teaching and can be very funny. She has new students in each of her books and is either involved in a training class or school activity. She's the kind of teacher you always hope your children will have.

Her e-mails. Every one of the books contains Bel's e-mails with different groups, How to get through menopause, how to plan her daughters wedding, how to babysit for her new grandbaby. They are funny, some of the advise will have you laughing out loud.

Her friends. Bel has a very nice relationship with her friends and their families. These people actually investigate the crimes, not just stumble into clues like many heroines do. It helps that Illuminada is a private detective.

Other supporting characters. This series has a lot of supporting help, from Illuminada's husband and daughter, Betty's new boyfriend, who's the brother of an earlier murder victim. Her son, Bel's children. They are all woven into the storylines, not big parts but enough to give you the feeling of closeness between friends and family.

The mysteries, except for this book. The mysteries have been good, somewhat complicated and took real investigation on the part of Bel and her friends.

Lowlights:

Some of their investigation techniques. I thought their dressing up like men, one in a wheel chair to go to the strip club was both ridiculous and unnecessary. They could have gone, disguised as other women with Illuminada's husband as a group. Women do go to strip clubs with their husbands and boyfriends.

Sol, Bel's boyfriend. I hate to dump on this guy, but he hasn't improved over the series. He's almost a useless character. I don't get what Bel sees in him and his constant ranting about her job and her closeness with her pupils can be very irritating.

This mystery. The mystery itself was good, but I thought the solution was a little weak and for the first time, some of their investigating techniques seemed ridiculous.

If you're reading this series, be sure and get the Anthology Book - Motherhood is Murder. A Jane Isenberg - Bel Barrett short story is included in this book, along with a Mary Daheim & Carolyn Hart, story. It does not always show up when you do a search for the series.

I really enjoyed this series.

I hate to go on a plane ride without a Bel Barrett mystery, so I was happy when Hot and Bothered appeared. I could tell you the plot (which I won't, don't worry) and you would still enjoy the scenes, the funny dialogue, and the people you meet. Life in Hoboken, New Jersey, although dangerous, is always entertaining.

Every single character is a stereotype in this series, but the author is starting to really overdo it. We know Illuminada is an impatient Cuban -- can we get through a scene without her looking at her watch and throwing out a "chica" or "Dios mio"? We know Betty is an organized, African-American control freak -- can we get through a scene without her pulling out her Palm Pilot to take notes and throwing out a "girlfriend"? Sol is a laid back Jew...Raoul is a devoted to his wife Cuba...Vic is a macho Italian -- we get it already.

This story was just silly. Bel was able to solve the murder because someone had a business flyer...the same flyer she's seen in just about every place she goes during the book. I still have no idea how seeing that flyer for maybe the 9,000th time suddenly allowed her to wrap the whole thing up into one tidy little package.

Let's calm down with the characterizations and try to focus on the stories here...not in trying to paint pictures of characters who're becoming unlikable.