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Denise Hamilton ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Denise Hamilton Savage Garden: A Novel (Eve Diamond Novels)
Pocket Star 20060201 0743492714 / 9780743492713 MM Very Good
0743492714 0743492714 From Publishers Weekly Hamilton's fictional counterpart, L.A. Times reporter Eve Diamond (The Jasmine Trade, etc.), investigates another murder in California's melting pot. When unpredictable actress Catarina Velosi fails to show up for her play's premiere, Eve and her boyfriend, Silvio Aguilar, are dispatched to find her. Bloodstains in Catarina's Echo Park apartment lead Eve to suspect foul play--and the police to suspect Silvio. Eve's got an unwelcome sidekick in Felice Morgan, a slick young African-American reporter with hot credentials. Is Felice another Jayson Blair? Is Silvio tied to the murder? Eve and Felice pursue the case, interviewing Catarina's old drama teacher, the alcoholic wife of the playwright, an assemblyman's flirtatious assistant, a drug-dealing neighbor and a Hollywood mogul, among others. Like Raymond Chandler, Hamilton describes California in gritty, lyrical prose; like Sue Grafton, she shows a tough-skinned, tenderhearted heroine breaking a few rules, if not a few bones. Hamilton humanizes Eve through her personal ties to the murder and her professional doubts about Felice; she enriches the novel's atmosphere with music (the title comes from a song playing ominously in Catarina's apartment) and coastal landscapes. Hamilton's social insights about race and success may not always feel profound, but her compassion for her characters and knowledge of their worlds make her novel compelling reading. Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist In the fourth Eve Diamond novel (Last Lullaby, 2004), the resourceful L.A. Times reporter's plans for an evening at the theater go awry before the curtain rises. The leading lady, the playwright's muse, is missing, and Eve's boyfriend, Silvio, the playwright's best friend, is asked to search for her. Eve tags along to get the story and later wishes she hadn't. The drama queen, who turns up at the bottom of a cliff, has left a trail of brokenhearted suspects that includes Silvio. While some of the elements here seem stock--a reformed gangbanger turned artiste, a bewitching diva, close-knit Latinos who call each other "homes"--Hamilton's tale is a nice update on the hard-boiled genre. Certain plot elements have a 1940s feel, yet her sensual, conflicted sleuth lives in a distinctly modern world of cell phones and BMWs. And a story line involving Eve's resentment at the fast-tracking of an African American reporter adds a topical twist while still evoking classic crime-novel themes of class and identity. Keir Graff Copyright ? American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Price:
1.69 USD
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Denise Hamilton Sugar Skull: An Eve Diamond Novel (Eve Diamond Novels)
Pocket Star 20040201 0743482212 / 9780743482219 MM Very Good
0743482212 0743482212 Amazon Review You can spot Denise Hamilton's journalistic background in the inquisitive, meticulous way she plumbs the economic and ethnic strata of Los Angeles, the setting of her second Eve Diamond mystery, Sugar Skull. As in her previous book, The Jasmine Trade, which dealt with Asian gangsters and undersupervised teens susceptible to criminal influence, Sugar Skull contrasts seemingly disparate, yet intersecting social realms as it illuminates a metropolis in transition. "All over town, people were dying violently," observes L.A. Times reporter Diamond at this tale's start. In other words, it's a typical weekend in California's largest city, with most of the deceased barely earning a mention in print. But Isabel Chevalier is different. A 15-year-old prep-school student, she's taken to slumming with runaway street kids, so when she disappears suddenly, her worried father seeks Diamond's help. Too late: Isabel is found murdered in an abandoned building. Sniffing a good story, Diamond tracks down the homeless youths who knew Isabel best, including the feral but oddly magnetic Finch "Mad Dog" Marino and an abused girl called Scout, who revs up the reporter's maternal instincts. At the same time, Diamond has another scoop on the hook, involving the suspicious demise of a mayoral candidate's "super-socialite" wife, who--in hypocritical disregard of her hubby's "family values" platform--has been cavorting with another man. Hamilton's smoothly paced yarn sends Eve from a riverside transvestite camp to Latino nightclubs to the hyper-competitive arena of her newsroom, yet leaves her time (and breath) enough to tryst with a somber Hispanic music promoter amid L.A.'s Day of the Dead festivities. Although readers may cringe at this novel's trite portrayals of spin-mad politicians, Diamond's rough-cut charm and perspicacity, plus Hamilton's thoughtful focus on race and homelessness, make Sugar Skull a sweet read. --J. Kingston Pierce --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly In Edgar finalist Hamilton's (The Jasmine Trade) passionate new puzzle, feisty Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond is anxious to advance from the Valley to a more prestigious desk downtown. She gets her chance when, while writing the roundup of weekend murders, she's confronted by a man frantic to find his runaway daughter. Then the nude body of beautiful socialite Venus Della Viglia Langdon, wife of mayoral candidate Carter Langdon III, turns up in the couple's pool. These two seemingly unconnected occurrences reverberate across the vast urban sprawl that is home to one of the country's most diverse populations. The Mexican Day of the Dead festivities are in progress, and the little sugar skulls given to mark the occasion appear in the strangest places. Eve is soon immersed in the down and dirty worlds of runaways, a high-powered political campaign and the exploding Latin music scene-and caught up in a torrid affair with Silvio Aguilar, son of a music-industry tycoon and Venus's brother. The tenacious Eve discovers that even the most twisted and distant paths can converge, that very little separates the privileged from the desperate and that it's all-too-easy to step over the line of journalistic ethics, become part of the story and maybe wind up dead. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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DENISE HAMILTON The Jasmine Trade (Eve Diamond Novels)
Pinnacle Books 2002 0786015233 / 9780786015238 Paperback Very Good
0786015233 0786015233 From Publishers Weekly When a young Chinese bride-to-be is found dead at the wheel of her Lexus at the start of this solid debut thriller, plucky Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond's compulsive curiosity and professional instinct for good copy lead her into the unfamiliar and intersecting worlds of Asian gangs and Southern California's "parachute kids," wealthy Asian teens living unsupervised in San Marino mansions while their parents manage businesses on the other side of the Pacific. By quickly befriending a parachute kid "dancing with the dragon" of gang membership and just as swiftly falling in love with Mark Furukawa, a counselor for troubled teens, Eve ensures herself a role in the investigation that is both complicated and personal. Add in the murdered girl's secret diary, her shady fianc
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