Hitchock’s mysteries are savvy social satires and well-constructed clocks, ticking down to nail-biting climaxes.” — New York Post
“This novel’s got everything—passion, betrayal, money, obsession, murder. It’s the book Patricia Highsmith and Edith Wharton might have written together.” — Washingtonian
“Sophisticated entertainment for readers with a taste for luxury and a peeping-Tom urge to spy on high society.” — New York Observer
“Ruth Rendell meets Dominick Dunne in this deliciously dark and witty novel about social climbing and murder.” — Library Journal
“Foie gras, champagne, a famous pearl necklace, and socialites at each other’s throats. What more could you ask for? Great fun.” — Christopher Buckley
“Thrums with wicked wit and an insider’s view of court life in the Manhattan and Southampton of the twenty-first century. Hitchcock has seen it and lived it and shares all. She has a keen eye and a perfect ear.” — Marie Brenner
Sophisticated entertainment for readers with a taste for luxury and a peeping-Tom urge to spy on high society.
Foie gras, champagne, a famous pearl necklace, and socialites at each other’s throats. What more could you ask for? Great fun.
Thrums with wicked wit and an insider’s view of court life in the Manhattan and Southampton of the twenty-first century. Hitchcock has seen it and lived it and shares all. She has a keen eye and a perfect ear.
This novel’s got everything—passion, betrayal, money, obsession, murder. It’s the book Patricia Highsmith and Edith Wharton might have written together.
Hitchock’s mysteries are savvy social satires and well-constructed clocks, ticking down to nail-biting climaxes.
Hitchock’s mysteries are savvy social satires and well-constructed clocks, ticking down to nail-biting climaxes.
The story has all the perfect page-turners: mystery, double-crossing, aristocracy, and murder...drippingly good beach reading.
There is enough real-life inspiration for the fictional characters to keep cocktail parties from Martha's Vinyard to the Hamptons abuzz all summer.
An amusing and highly readable X-ray of Manhattan's smart set. Hitchcock
does a smashing job...her clever and funny.
Beyond an elaborate plot featuring a swindle involving Marie Antoinette,
Social Crimes doubles as a primer on decorating and entertaining dos and
don'ts gleaned from the gilded set Ms. Hitchcock knows so well.
(A) killer read...this deliciously dark novel sneaks a knowing glimpse at a
gilded world.
— (Selected as a Beach book of the week)
In Social Crimes, Jane Stanton Hitchcock sets out to bring New York's
high society low, and she does in a witty little book that taxes only the
rich.
How does Hitchcock's amusing saga differ from the scads of books involving money, murder and high society? There's the economy and wit of her prose ("murder was never my goal in life," heroine Jo Slater begins), and then there's Jo's awareness of how silly the upper crust is ("if you're nice and you lose all your money, you're out. But if you're a sh-t with a private plane, you're in"). Playing on the tried and true theme of the older wife being dumped for the young miss, Hitchcock (Trick of the Eye) offers a funny, lightweight tale. Jo is living the life: she's married to a billionaire, owns a sumptuous apartment in Manhattan, a rambling home in the Hamptons and a magnificent collection of 18th-century art. Things are just perfect until pretty young thing Monique de Passy enters her world (seemingly as a friend), Jo's husband dies, and Jo learns that he's left his estate to none other than the charming French countess. What follows and constitutes the bulk of the book is Jo's attempt to frame Monique as a seductress and murderer. Her approach is, for the most part, honorable. Jo is smart and has plenty of connections, and even though her financial situation becomes dire after her husband's death (she takes cabs instead of limousines and wears old couture dresses to parties), she holds her head high and eventually triumphs. Hitchcock's prose is airy and her plot moves quickly, making this a quintessential beach book. (June) Forecast: Readers of Diane Johnson's Le Divorce and this season's bestselling The Nanny Diaries will lap this up. Come summer, Social Crimes is likely to show up in tote bags and on cabana tables from Boca and Bridgehampton to Beverly Hills. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Ruth Rendell meets Dominick Dunne in this deliciously dark and witty novel about social climbing and murder. When husband Lucius dies of a heart attack under rather sordid and suspicious circumstances, prominent New York socialite Jo Slater is shocked to learn that he has left his sizable estate, including the Southampton mansion and Fifth Avenue apartment, to a mysterious French countess. Exiled from the kingdom of money, power, and privilege, Jo struggles to rebuild her life only to find herself thwarted at every turn by the countess. From working as a Park Avenue interior decorator to selling "wholesale carpets and hotel furnishings on Lexington and 26th Street," Jo quickly slides down the social ladder until she hits rock bottom, buying a pair of Hush Puppies (on sale) for her aching feet: "Symbolizing my ugly new life of drudgery and hopelessness, those Hush Puppies were just about the most depressing purchase I had ever, ever made." Obsessed with recovering her fortune and place as queen of "le tout New York," Jo concocts an audacious scheme of fraud and murder. Can she pull it off? For sophisticated readers wanting the perfect beach read, Hitchcock's third novel (after Trick of the Eye and The Witches' Hammer) offers a bubbly cocktail of psychological suspense and social satire. Strongly recommended for popular fiction collections. Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
A lukewarm tale of suspense about an obsessed Manhattan woman who grows as evil as her nemesis. Celebrating her birthday in Southampton, Jo Slater, at "a certain age," appears to have it all. Once a steakhouse waiter, she now stands next to her husband, Lucius, worth $200 million. She thrives in Manhattan's art scene and counts many friends. But, alas, image misleads. At the party, Jo meets a fawning Countess Monique de Passy. Lucius turns testy, and Jo soon learns what everyone, including the reader, already knows: Lucius and the Countess are having an affair. Interrupting their cabana tryst, Jo so startles Lucius that he suffers a fatal heart attack. She subsequently learns her husband had changed his will, leaving everything to Monique. Poor Jo loses the Southampton estate and the Fifth Avenue condo. Worse yet, Monique cleverly foils Jo's every attempt to start a new life. Ambling home one night after a bleak day spent selling carpet, Jo drops in at the posh King Cole Room to splurge on a drink or two. A woman who just happens to look like Monique also drops in, and Jo's four-year-long obsession to strike back at Monique crystallizes into a plan: Jo will hire the woman in the bar, an escort named Oliva, to pose as Monique. The faux Monique will consult a lawyer about filing a will, which will return Lucius' estate to Jo. Of course, for Jo to collect, Monique must be dispatched. Jo hatches a jerrybuilt scheme that culminates in Monique's death-the Countess dives over a balcony grasping at a million-dollar necklace Jo dangles before her. Jo returns triumphant to the social whirl, while in some dark place Oliva waits to claim her due. A Hampton breeze that rarely chills. Hitchcock (Trickof the Hammer, 1994, etc.) misses the psychological insight that can make readers squirm with empathy.
