You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You: A Rat Pack Mystery [Hardcover]

YOU'RE NOBODY 'TIL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU is Robert Randisi's fourth Rat Pack Mystery. The title is a take-off on a popular song, but it's also a comment on the price of fame. While Randisi never waxes philosophical in these books, YOU'RE NOBODY 'TIL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU has a strong undercurrent of retrospection.

This is a lightning read, comic, colorful, and very entertaining. It's one weak spot is it's ending, a deux ex machina reprised from an earlier Rat Pack Mystery. Considering that this weak spot is on the second-to-last page, and that it works, I'll give Randisi a pass, this time, anyway. I read the book through in one sitting, and didn't lift my eyes from print once until page 77.

Unlike the previous entries in this series, YOU'RE NOBODY 'TIL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU hardly takes place in Las Vegas. Instead, Eddie Gianelli and his pancake-addicted sidekick, the good-natured killer-for-hire Jerry Epstein, spend most of their time in Los Angeles (and a few days in Brooklyn).

Dean Martin asks Eddie G to look after Marilyn Monroe, who, after filming THE MISFITS, is wracked with misplaced guilt for being the cause of Clark Gable's death, and is seemingly awash in paranoia, convinced that she's being followed. Nobody is taking Marilyn very seriously. She's "fragile," and Eddie is expecting to do little more than to reassure her.

When Eddie G has to leave Los Angeles for a few days to attend his mother's funeral, he leaves his friend, Private Investigator Danny Bardini, in charge of Marilyn. Eddie's Brooklyn venture is disastrous as he comes face-to-face with his severely dysfunctional family. He leaves Brooklyn right after his mother's funeral, vowing never to return.

Family being so central to many Italian-Americans, and knowing that Randisi is a Brooklyn native who now lives in St. Louis, I had to wonder if something autobiographical doesn't lurk in these pages. Being a Brooklyn boy myself, I was saddened that Eddie G's recollections of life in Brooklyn were so overwhelmingly negative. Maybe Randisi needs to reintroduce Eddie to Brooklyn, sans his Gianelli connections.

Upon returning home to Las Vegas, Eddie is greeted by the news that Danny has disappeared and so he sets out for LA to find Danny. In company with Jerry and Marilyn Monroe, Eddie G soon discovers that there is far more to Marilyn's fears than he'd ever wanted to know.

Randisi doesn't shy away from the sexual Marilyn Monroe in these pages, but he draws her sympathetically, as a lonely, good-natured beautiful girl who likes to cook and watch TV, drifting in a sea of predatory males. Close contact with "the real" Marilyn Monroe destroys "the fantasy" Marilyn Monroe for Eddie, Jerry, and the other men who truly get to know her.

In the end, YOU'RE NOBODY 'TIL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU is all about family, and those we've loved and lost. Eddie G can't file a missing person's report on Danny Bardini until he identifies himself as Danny's cousin; Eddie is both sorrowful and angry about the way he's treated by his Brooklyn relatives; Marilyn becomes "like my kid sister"; the Rat Pack is a band of brothers; Jerry is Eddie's "best friend"; Vegas is "home." Even a secondary character, LAPD Captain Stanze, is named at the request of a Randisi and Rat Pack fan for a St. Louis police officer, her brother, sadly killed in the line of duty. It seems we may all be nobody until life takes us away from one another. Then, like Marilyn Monroe, we become icons.

The fact that this is a roaring good read doesn't hurt either.

I highly recommend this mystery "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Kills You". The book is full of action as pit boss Eddie G. describes how he and his bodyguard/friend investigate Marilyn's belief that she is being followed as well as the disappearance of Eddie's private detective friend Danny. I have enjoyed reading the other Rat Pack mysteries by this author, but this one was my favorite. This series takes you back in time and gives you an inside look at hanging out with Frank, Dean, and Sammy. This installment in particular was interesting and really touching. Marilyn Monroe was portrayed in this book as sweet and vulnerable and the characterization was so vivid that I felt sad when some of the inevitable events took place in the end.

If you haven't read the earlier books in the series, you are missing out on other great reads, but you will still be able to follow and enjoy this book. Don't miss the author's note at the end which gives an interesting bit of information about Marilyn Monroe's house. It also talks about the character Detective Stanze that was named after real life police office Robert Stanze who was killed in the line of duty in St. Louis.

I really enjoyed this book and hope that Eddie's adventures continue in future books.

In 1962 in Las Vegas, the Rat Pack turns to Sands Hotel pit boss Eddie Gianelli to get them out of embarrassing situations as he has done for them before (see HEY THERE, YOU WITH THE GUN IN YOUR HAND). Dean Martin asks Eddie to help a remorseful and frightened Marilyn Monroe; the sex symbol fears she drove Clark Gable to an early grave during the shooting of The Misfits while also believes someone is stalking her.

Dino further explains MM is a child in a woman's body so suggests he treat her as such. Eddie investigates Marilyn's claim of being followed. Soon he runs into some nasty thugs though neither he nor his associates can figure out who these punks work for and why Miss Monroe is the target. He detours to the East Coast while one of Eddie's buddies P.I Danny Bardini vanishes and the other Jerry is beaten and has to be hospitalized at a time when JFK is coming to Palm Springs allegedly to see Frank.

This is a fun Rat Pack tale as the expatriate Brooklyn dodger Gianelli once again protects the extended "family" of the famous drinking buddies. The story line is fast-paced, but predominantly focuses on Eddie and his two associates as they protect the eldritch like Miss Monroe from her troubles; many of which are in her head. The Rat Pack mostly plays cameo roles, but fans of the series know that they will relish another fine historical mystery as the Brooklyn Bums continue to take star billing over the Rat Pack in Vegas.

Harriet Klausner

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