Hotline to Murder [Kindle Edition]

Alan Cook (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

(T)he plot is sufficiently thrill packed to satisfy the most jaded palate...There are some suitably chilling chases and death defying scenarios.
--Denise Pickles, Reviewing the Evidence

Product Description

“I like the characters…as well as the Hotline for the setting. This is a great mystery.”
Tony Schmidt joins the Central Hotline in sunny Bonita Beach, California to improve his listening skills. Shahla Lawton joins the Hotline to fulfill a volunteering requirement for her high school. Neither one expects to get mixed up in a murder investigation.
But that is before Shahla’s best friend, Joy, also a listener, is murdered. Tony and Shahla discover that they are able to uncover information that the police can’t. Information about the “inappropriate” callers who haunt the Hotline, and information about other people with a connection to the Hotline who may have hidden motives to kill the beautiful Joy. Questions arise. Will the murderer strike the Hotline again? And if the murderer does strike again, will Shahla be the next target?
Although he has been out of college for years, Tony still lives with his college roommate, Josh, and his lifestyle might be described as extended fraternity. Faced with the responsibility of taking calls from people who range from disabled to obsessive to abused to suicidal, and also of helping to solve a murder, Tony finds he has to mature fast. Since this involves admitting that girls like Shahla can be smart and dedicated, and not just underage sex objects, as Josh sees them, the relationship between Tony and Josh may suffer.
Tony and Shahla have harrowing adventures together in venues ranging from Southern California to Las Vegas, as they try to distinguish the annoying-but-harmless callers from the dangerous, and figure out whether the murderer might just be somebody not connected with the Hotline.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 413 KB
• Publisher: AuthorHouse; 1 edition (March 25, 2005)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001KR0AQG
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,448 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

After spending more than a quarter of a century as a pioneer in the computer industry, Alan Cook is well into his second career as a writer. Alan has written a number of mysteries, including "Relatively Dead," "Forget to Remember," "Run into Trouble," "Honeymoon for Three,"The Hayloft," "Hotline to Murder," "Catch a Falling Knife" and "Thirteen Diamonds." "Run into Trouble" received a Silver Quill award from the American Authors Association and was named Top Pacific West book by Readers Choice. "Honeymoon for Three" received a Silver Quill award from the American Authors Association and was named Top Mountain West book by Readers Choice. Alan's short story, 'Hot Days, Cold Nights,' appears in the Mystery Writers of America anthology, "A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime," edited by Jeffery Deaver. Alan splits his time between writing and walking, another passion. His inspirational book, "Walking the World: Memories and Adventures," has information and adventure in equal parts. It has been named one of the 'Top 10 Walking Memoirs and Tales of Long Walks' by the walking website, walking.about.com. He is also the author of "Walking to Denver," a light-hearted fictional account of a walk he did. "Freedom's Light: Quotations from History's Champions of Freedom," contains quotations from some of our favorite historical figures about personal freedom. And "The Saga of Bill the Hermit" is a narrative poem about a hermit who decides that the single life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Alan lives with his wife, Bonny, on a hill in Southern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable New Mystery, May 26, 2005

By 

Cynthia Chow (Kaneohe, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotline to Murder (Paperback)

In a departure from his senior citizen Lillian Morgan mysteries Alan Cook introduces Tony Schmidt, an aging frat boy living in Bonita Beach, California. Volunteering at a suicide hotline to develop his communication skills and aid his job as a marketing manager for Bodyalternatives.net, Tony discovers that dealing with the emotional backlash of suicidal callers is the least of his problems. Tony is uncomfortably attracted to the seventeen year-old volunteer Shahla, and when her friend and hotline listener is murdered Shahla pulls him into an investigation despite his inclination to leave things to the police. As the two track down their weirder callers and fellow volunteers all the way to Vegas Tony must also cope with his irritatingly immature roommate and confront his growing suspicion as to his college friend's involvement with the murder.

Cook has created a very engaging hero in Tony, who realizes that has to grow up fast as he encounters the pain of the callers and sees just how much that he himself has to lose. Shahla is at times wiser than her years while still flashing glimpses of being a teenage girl, and her impulsiveness nicely contrasts with Tony's reserve. This is a very entertaining mystery that builds up speed and takes the reader along to its surprising conclusion.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great first mystery, May 25, 2005

By 

Dawn Dowdle "Mystery Lovers Corner reviewer" (Lynchburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotline to Murder (Paperback)

Not long after Tony Schmidt joins the Central Hotline in Bonita Beach, California, Joy is found murdered. Both are listeners-people who man the Hotline and talk to the callers. Tony pairs up with Shahla Lawton, another listener and Joy's best friend.

They begin working many shifts together. Since Tony and Shahla work at the Hotline, they find they can often get information the police are unable to obtain. But instead of turning everything over to the police, they begin to follow up on much of the information themselves. Partly because the police don't seem too receptive to the information and partly because of privacy rules.

They begin looking into some of the inappropriate callers and others with a connection to the Hotline to determine who might have had a motive to kill Joy. There are many strange people and they have to sift through information to determine if the person is just having trouble or if they might have a motive to have killed Joy.

Tony and Shahla put themselves in many very sticky situations and find themselves in peril more than once as they work to uncover the identity of the killer.

This is a great story. It moves along quickly and keeps you guessing as to who committed this murder and why. There are plenty of red herrings and things happen regularly that made me change my mind continuously about who I thought did it.

I really enjoyed getting to know Tony and Shahla. Even though Shahla is only a teenager, she is such an integral part of this story. Their relationship is terrific. I hope there will be more books with these two main characters.

This story is well crafted and the California setting terrific. I highly recommend this book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hotline to Murder, August 11, 2006

By 

Lynda W. Clark (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotline to Murder (Paperback)

Through the vehicle of hotline encounters and deviations from protocol, Cook's cast of characters will keep you psychologically intrigued to the very last page. Terrific!