Hotline to Murder

by Alan Cook


Formats

Softcover
£11.49
£10.00
Softcover
£10.00

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 30/03/2005

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 316
ISBN : 9781420838251

About the Book

            “I like the characters…as well as the Hotline for the setting. This is a great mystery.”

             Tony Schmidt joins the Central Hotline in sunny Bonita Beach, California to improve his listening skills. Shahla Lawton joins the Hotline to fulfill a volunteering requirement for her high school. Neither one expects to get mixed up in a murder investigation.

            But that is before Shahla’s best friend, Joy, also a listener, is murdered. Tony and Shahla discover that they are able to uncover information that the police can’t. Information about the “inappropriate” callers who haunt the Hotline, and information about other people with a connection to the Hotline who may have hidden motives to kill the beautiful Joy. Questions arise. Will the murderer strike the Hotline again? And if the murderer does strike again, will Shahla be the next target?

            Although he has been out of college for years, Tony still lives with his college roommate, Josh, and his lifestyle might be described as extended fraternity. Faced with the responsibility of taking calls from people who range from disabled to obsessive to abused to suicidal, and also of helping to solve a murder, Tony finds he has to mature fast. Since this involves admitting that girls like Shahla can be smart and dedicated, and not just underage sex objects, as Josh sees them, the relationship between Tony and Josh may suffer.

            Tony and Shahla have harrowing adventures in venues ranging from Southern California to Las Vegas, as they try to distinguish the annoying-but-harmless callers from the dangerous, and figure out whether the murderer might just be somebody not connected with the Hotline.


About the Author

        

After spending more than a quarter of a century as a pioneer in the computer industry, Alan Cook is well into his second career as a writer.

 

Run into Trouble is a mystery/suspense novel about a footrace along the California coast in 1969 during the Cold War. But is the Cold War about to heat up?

 

The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery and prize-winning Honeymoon for Three  feature Gary Blanchard, first as a high school senior who has to solve the murder of his cousin, and ten years later as a bridegroom who gets more than he bargained for on his honeymoon.

 

Hotline to Murder takes place at a crisis hotline in Bonita Beach, California. When a listener is murdered, Tony and Shahla team up to uncover the strange worlds of their callers and find the killer.

 

His Lillian Morgan mysteries, Catch a Falling Knife and Thirteen Diamonds, explore the secrets of retirement communities. Lillian, a retired mathematics professor from North Carolina, is smart, opinionated, and loves to solve puzzles, even when they involve murder.

 

Alan splits his time between writing and walking, another passion. His inspirational, prize-winning book, Walking the World: Memories and Adventures, has inspiration, [information and adventure in equal parts. He is also the author of Walking to Denver, a light-hearted, fictional account of a walk he did.

 

Freedom’s Light: Quotations from History’s Champions of Freedom, contains quotations from some of our favorite historical figures about personal freedom. The Saga of Bill the Hermit is a narrative poem about a hermit who decides that the single life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Alan lives with his wife, Bonny, on a hill in Southern California. His website is alancook.50megs.com.