Reviewed By: Carl Brookins - RAM
![[4 stars]](../images/spots/1_sail_40.gif)
Death in a Hot Flash
Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Jane Isenberg
Class/Genre: Mystery Senior Sleuths Ethnic Amateur Sleuth Woman Main Character
Series: Bel Barrett # 3
Avon Twilight, 2000, 215 pages
Bel Barrett is back again in another character-driven story of murder, malfeasance and menopause. Author Jane Isenberg has solved one of the sometimes troubling aspects of amateur sleuthing. Why would an ordinary female person be periodically enmeshed in a murder investigation, regardless of the level of competence of the local police? Isenberg has solved the problem by casting her menopausal protagonist as a teacher of English at the Jersey City community college. There it's logical for her to interact with dotty faculty, troubled students and weird administrators. Some of them are in this book.
As the story opens, Bel Barrett is co-teaching a class with community faculty member Vinnie Vallone. They are teaching a class in research and writing in a program designed for---are you ready?- --aspiring funeral directors. Barrett's role, according to Vinnie, is to help inject a higher level of feminism into the profession, at least in the community college program. Then Vinnie turns up dead. Murdered.
Suspicion turns almost immediately to one of Bel's students, a black reformed ex-gangbanger. Well! Bel to the rescue, she hopes. Meanwhile, she has to cope with an overabundance of worry over her son who's likely to be in harm's way because he's working in a kibbutz in Israel. She's also coping with her often over-wrought friends, and a running disagreement with her lover who isn't happy with Bel's predilection for sticking her nose into murder investigations. And then, there are those M&Ms.
Isenberg is a good writer. This series is great entertainment, and a very satisfying story.
Carl Brookins - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM
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