Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery [Paperback]

Jerome Doolittle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 2000 | Series: Tom Bethany

"Tom Bethany is some guyMr. Doolittle is a slick stylist. His characters have heftthey talk like the people they're supposed to be."New York times."One of those books you'll stay up all night to finish"Cleveland Plain Dealer."Ranks with Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain and Ross Thomas as a high-voltage storyteller:"Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boston wrestler and occasional private eye Tom Bethany, introduced in 1990 Shamus nominee Body Scissors , looks into the death of a wealthy young man whose bequest to the American Civil Liberties Union has been contested. If Morty Limbach intended to kill himself in an act of autoerotic asphyxiation, as his insurance company claims, then the ACLU--whose top lawyer, Hope Edwards, is Bethany's married lover--is out a quarter of a million dollars. Bethany learns that the insurance company's sleazy CEO was once involved with Limbach's mother and had also made unsucccessful moves on Edwards. Inclined to violence when personally provoked, Bethany is a taciturn, politically correct hero obsessed with privacy (he has no credit cards, no bank account, no Social Security number), but he's also intelligent, sensitive and likably thuggish. Doolittle has placed him in a satisfying plot that embraces prime-time TV, improvisational theater, psychoanalysis and Harvard professors. There are assorted red herrings and a fairly obvious perp, but plenty of other bad guys as well. Giving Spenser a run for his money, Bethany proves Boston is a two-PI town. BOMC alternate; Mysterious Book Club selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Like Doolittle's first mystery, Body Scissors ( LJ 9/1/90), his second features narrator Tom Bethany, a one-man investigator/vengeance squad based in Boston. As an assist to his married lover, who runs the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) office in Washington, D.C., he delves into the circumstances surrounding the auto-erotic asphyxiation death of a meek millionaire whose will benefits the ACLU. Bethany, who has an outside-the-letter-of-the-law, rough, and vindictive character, soon messes with a nasty insurance company owner and hangers-on at the millionaire's actors' studio. Still, this is an ultimately satisfying mystery, tempered with the Cambridge backdrop.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (November 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595145965
• ISBN-13: 978-0595145966
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,211,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

What a man was passionate about at the age of 12 is probably what he should make his life's work. I was chasing frogs and snakes and other small animals in the outdoors, but at the same time I was addicted to reading and wound up making the wrong choice.

I became a reporter, columnist and editor for the old Washington Daily News and for the Washington Post. Following that I free-lanced for the Saturday Evening Post, Sports Illustrated, Holiday, the Nation, Penthouse, Oui, Esquire, and the Readers Digest.

In 1966 I joined the U.S. Information Agency, serving in Casablanca before becoming press attache in our Laos embassy during the war. I resigned over there and went back to free-lance reporting, in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

On returning to the United States in 1972, I wrote two volumes of the Time-Life Books wilderness series. In 1976 I joined the Carter campaign, ending up as a White House speechwriter and later chief of public affairs for the Federal Aviation Administration.

When Reagan fired us all, I wrote my first novel, "The Bombing Officer," and spent five years teaching writing at Harvard. There I began the Tom Bethany mystery series, which I may yet revive.

I recent years I've been blogging at http://badattitudes.com/MT/ on politics, culture, and whatever else catches my interest. And lately, having at last become old enough to figure out what actually matters, I have been running around in the woods again. This is in pursuit of a book on the community of herpetology -- humans and reptiles both -- in the United States.

Ideas, leads, anecdotes, suggestions, and pictures are all welcome and may be sent to my gmail account. To the left of the ampersand, type: jerome.doolittle

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pinning the Bad Guys, July 13, 2001

By 

"mrsfaganselves" (huntington, ny United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery (Paperback)

Though I don't know him, Jerome Doolittle strikes me as someone who'd be a hoot to have a beer with-were both of us still drinking-and a bear to have as an enemy. And someone I'm extremely eager to keep reading.

Through his Tom Bethany character, a private investigator with no clear clientele, but an intense focus on righting wrongs, Doolittle lets readers know immediately-NO, NOW!-what's wrong with bureaucrats, lots of businessmen, some cops, lawyers and many others whose very existence makes others suffer. And, oh, yeah. Lots of Republicans.

Now, to be fair, he also tackles dopey Democrats and their occasional, in Doolittle's view, misdeeds. Jimmy Carter comes in for a regular swipe for having refused to allow the United States to participate in the 1980 Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (Even as I write this, that move does seem to be rather dumb, and I like Jimmy Carter). But the Republicans really take a pounding, regularly and incisively, almost to the point of wincing, which I maybe, just might do if I could stop laughing and nodding in agreement. Not just any Republicans, mostly just the indicted ones.

While Doolittle is making clear his views, he works them very cleverly, though not stealthily, into the storyline of each of his books.

And, now, the storyline for Strangle Hold.

Tom Bethany is a low-key, somewhat paranoid but very human private investigator in Cambridge, Mass.

Bethany takes on a job investigating the death of Morty Limbach, who appears to have committed suicide. Limbach was the son of extremely rich parents, who think he was a total failure for having gone left in his politics. His main work in life was funding a group of troupe of actors, whose flaws as individuals is on display throughout the story.

Limbach may have been engaged in auto-erotica when he died, which helps feed the urge to cover up how he died. An insurance policy payoff worth a quarter of a million dollars rides on the determination of how he died.

Needless to say, Bethany figures out the case--it's murder--and who did it and why. Using a minimum of violence, though more is implied, he confronts and captures the bad guy.

The story moves along nicely, building in little subplots, painting character portraits and mixing in a nice blend of people, from the wife of a retired bishop, to a female med student with a string of boyfriends to a cop with a strong sense of duty to a girlfriend married to a late-blooming gay man. All are characters rather different from the usual folks found in crime stories. Bethany doesn't live in an aha-gotcha! world. He lives by his wits. It's Doolittle's writing and depiction of people that sell the story, because, after all, how interesting is one poor little rich guy whose parents didn't love him? We're sympathetic but heck, missing interns and dallying congressmen provide more exciting possibilities. His insight into people, their character flaws and their motivation, and his running social commentary, make the reading far too good to pass up.

If you're a Republican, you can still read this book, because after all, foibles are foibles, and you can shift them over in your brain to any number of Democrats if you'd prefer. I just happen to find them extra hilarious because his comments happen to target real people.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strangle Hold had a Hold on me, June 4, 2001

By 

Bridget Hockney (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery (Paperback)

You have the wit, the wacky reasoning, the weird lifestyle. What more could you want? Oh. A mystery solved? That's done too. Well worth the read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Locks you into a brilliant Story, May 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Strangle Hold: A Tom Bethany Mystery (Paperback)

STRANGLEHOLD BY JEROME DOOLITTLE

The first novel to introduce Tom Bethany, a quirky, enigmantic PI, with a mysterious past, ex-Air America, Ex-CIA, ex-Harvard, and a Semi-Pro Wrestler, now acting as Left Wing Muscle. The character is very much like the Writer in background, and if you missed Doolittles books you are in for a suprise. They really predate the Lehane, Burke, Hiasson, Harlan Coben and Crais books, Very funny, ironic, Trageic but ultimately uplifting. Great Dialog, and very paranoid.

The story centres on Bethany being hired to check up on the mysterious death of a wealthy weirdo, who appears to have died in a bizzare sexual ritual, like the guy from INXS (Mike Hutchincene). The wills benefactor is the ACLU, wo are the sole benefactor form a weird Insurance policy, while lowlifes appear representing the familiy, and a house of wired misfit actors, and only Tom Bethany can uncover the truth behind the death.

Great Characters, I laughed out loud at ?The Hocker? one of the best. Do read as soon as possible. Like all his books catches you on Page one, and then the squeeze is on. Thankfully back in print.