Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

Murder on a Hot Tin Roof by Amanda Matetsky, 277 pages

And here's another lighthearted mystery I read. Yet this one wasn't so fantastic. Set in 1950s New York during a scorching summer, tabloid crime reporter Paige Turner (yes, that's actually the main character's name; I should have known then that the book would stink) and her best friend Abby snoop around to solve the murder of Abby's friend, a rising star actor who was killed the morning after his Broadway debut in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Filled with '50s slang, references, and stereotypes about the gay community (the scene in which Paige dressed up as a lesbian to infiltrate a gay party had me cringing), the book is simultaneously too cutesy and too disturbing. I also hated the fact that the first-person narrative kept breaking the fourth wall to point out her own exaggerations and justifications. Oh, and the mystery has maybe one clue. The rest of the "detecting" is all based on hunches and stereotypes. Bleh.