A Festival of Deaths

by Jane Haddam

Book Overview

Eight nights of murder! That's what Hanukkah is shaping up to be in Philadelphia, where a killer is stalking America's most outrageous TV talk show host. Ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian discovers that... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553560859
• ISBN13: 9780553560855
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Crimeline
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Talk Show Pizzazz

Based on copyright information Jane Haddam is a pseudonym it is believed. DeAnna Kroll is six feet tall. THE LOTTE GOLDMAN SHOW was her idea. When the Siamese twins fail to materialize at the airport on time because of delays at Gatwick and Heathrow, the show is thrown into turmoil and a replacement subject has to be found. DeAnna Kroll is the closest thing to a friend that Lotte Goldman has encountered in a long and action-packed lifetime. The show is outrageous, a kind of Dr. Ruth extension. The characters manifest all of the exotic diversity of New York City. The people are just plain vivid. For example, there is Itzaak Blechmann late of the Soviet Union and Israel whose experiences have put his body into a crisis mode permanently. "His fright-or-flight response never came down out of high gear." Most workers on the show are immigrants. Lotte Goldman likes to give people chances. She is an immigrant. A worker on the show turns up dead in the storeroom. Her apartment has been ransacked. There is a jealous co-worker on the scene who strikes the reader as suspicious. Gregor Demarkian, a former FBI agent resides in Philadelphia. The show is to go on the road and travel to Philadelphia first. Demarkian is famous in Philadelphia for solving some high profile crimes. So--the set up is preposterous but the writing is good and the scene has been set for Demarkian to work his detective magic on the situation. To be sure, of course, he enjoys no official title, and he is not really authorized to solve any mysteries whatsoever. (His favorite fictional detective is Nero Wolfe and there is a certain resemblance.) One of the stranger aspects of the show is the early hours in the morning it is taped. Demarkian is picked up at five A.M. to go into the studio. He is to appear on a program concerning serial killers. Another worker on the show turns up as a dead body. I do not think the plotting here is very adroit but the character portrayals and dialogue are wonderful. Even though this is a genre work it is fairly serious in the sense that it shows the consequences of violence in straightforward fashion. A third person turns up, but this person is only almost dead. The Bureau dealt with paper crime or the employees of the Bureau were called in after the fact. Demarkian had been astounded at all the blood, confusion, and mess of a real crime scene the first time he had been called into one. The mystery takes place during the season of Christmas and Hanukkah. There is liveliness with the existence of Armenian and Jewish clerics among the cast of characters. Demarkian is determined to remain a resident in his ethnic neighborhood because had had been so immersed in the lives of serial killers when he was in the Bureau. Gregor Kemarkian is also helping to investigate a hate crime. Well, the mystery is really like a closed room puzzle, sort of like, you know, did the bultler do it. It is quite an accomplished piece of work.

Father Tibor strikes again

To get the most out of the series, you should first read, at a minimum, NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING. One of the plot points in this book is that the murderer from that case is finally running out of appeals. Although the name is very carefully omitted, you'd be able to eliminate some of the suspects in the previous case if you read this book first. When Father Tibor Kasparian emigrated to the United States from the old Soviet Union by way of Israel, Rabbi David Goldman sponsored him. Now the rabbi needs a couple of favors. The more complicated favor is something that obviously must be done: helping a Hasidic temple in Philadelphia that's being harassed by some white supremecist group. Gregor gets in touch with an old friend at the FBI who tracks those groups for this one. The simplest favor, unfortunately, is least to Gregor's taste, but all the ladies of Cavanaugh Street want him to do it: to appear as a guest on _The Lotte Goldman Show_ (hosted by the rabbi's elder sister) during their annual visit to Philadelphia. Worse, the other guest is a serial killer on loan from prison, one Herbert Shasta (fortunately, not somebody Gregor personally had to deal with, but bad enough). Mr. Shasta's presence immensely complicates things when one of the young men working for the show is found murdered backstage; Shasta didn't do it, but any defense attorney could use him for reasonable doubt. As it happens, this is the 2nd murder the show has had in recent weeks: Maria Gonzalez, the former talent coordinator, was killed in New York. Is another serial killer present - this one on the staff of the show?

Like all of Haddam's books, this is taut and well-written.

Festival of Deaths finds Gregor Demarkian thrust into the crazy world of a TV talk show. A young woman working for the show is killed in New York just before the show goes on the road to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, the violence continues, and Demarkian and John Jackman of the Philadelphia police sort it out. As usual, Jane Haddam spins a web around the murders consisting of an unusually large cast of characters and their lives and activities. Even minor characters are well drawn, and though there are clues to the solution of the mystery, they're well hidden and the reader is led astray in any number of subtle and entertaining ways. The whodunit in a Haddam novel is almost always a surprise, but the best part is getting to the end, one page at a time.

I was hooked from the opening pararaph.

Gregor Demarkian, the retired FBI agent, is a man of reason, logic, intelligence and good will. Jane Haddam recognizes that life as it is lived reflects few of these qualities. The play in her works, which allow for her subtle ironic commentary, comes from the contrast of Gregor and the situations in which he finds himself. This time he is agrees to appear on an outrageous talk show--as favor to a friend--completely unaware of that he's agreed to appear center ring in America's favorite new circus.Hannukah, the season of light, that celebrates the survival of the oppressed, is the theme of this book. Haddam contrasts the cult of celebrity and the outrageous with the lives of those who work on the show, many of whom are among the poor and the marginalized. Well-done, thought-provoking and engagingly funny and ironic.

One more 'best' in a series of them!

Festival of Deaths offers the very best in character studies -- a Haddam trait -- with a kettleful of red herrings along the way. A healthy dose of humor is added to keep things hopping as well. I hate it when I read any book from start to finish in a single session, but I couldn't put it down! One more 'best' in a series of them.