The Bright Silver Star: A Berger and Mitry Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

Famous movie star Tito Molino comes back to Dorset for a visit with his actress wife, a Dorset native. Mitch has given Tito a horrendous review for his latest film. When they meet up at a local restaurant, punches are thrown and blood is drawn. Tito is volatile to say the least. When Tito is found dead at the bottom of a cliff, the focus of the investigation starts with Mitch. Things are never quite that simple especially in a community where bed hopping is a favorite pastime. Mitch is disheartened with his friends when truly ugly secrets surface.

David Handler has created a unique duo as protagonists for his series. It's not often we get a slightly overweight Jewish average joe kind of a guy hooked up with a exotic beauty who likes to rescue cats and create art as much as she likes to solve crime. This is the third in the series; the previous two are THE HOT PINK FARMHOUSE and THE COLD BLUE BLOOD. Each is atmospheric giving you a nice sense of a tiny seaside village. The plots are well crafted. I would recommend the whole series if you want easy readable books. They are a pretty fast read so you don't need a lot of time commitment. The one fault with THE BRIGHT SILVER STAR is that the secondary cast for the most part is not likable. I didn't care too much who ended up the culprit-all the characters were sort of slimy.

Mitch Berger, newly minted resident of Dorset and movie critic for the New York Times is devastated. Although he viciously drubbed Tito's most recent film, he had gotten close to the troubled young superstar. He felt that Tito was an outstanding actor who was simply wasting his talent on big budget dreck. And there was the little matter that Mitch was the last (well second to last if you count Tito's murderer) to actually speak to Tito.

Enter Des Mitry, Dorset's resident Trooper and Mitch's lady love. Des is called to the scene of Tito's death and is thus pulled into the investigation surrounding what turns out not to be suicide after all, but murder.

Once again Des and Mitch team up to help solve a crime in the elite little enclave known as Dorset.

This book is the third in a series following "Cold Blue Blood" and "Hot Pink Farmhouse." This was quite a fun little book which took me no time at all to read. I didn't really care very much about the characters of Tito or Esme since neither of them were at all sympathetic. But that really doesn't matter because this book, and the two others before it in the series, is really about Mitch's assimilation into the Dorset community and the evolution of his relationship with Des. Murder and Mayhem make for great plots, but the soul of this series is the three main characters: Mitch, Des and the village of Dorset.

The plot of the story is really a by-the-numbers murder mystery. Long time mystery readers or even people with twisty minds will figure out the whodunit (if not the why-dunnit) very quickly. There are the requisite red-herrings and even a secondary plot involving post 9/11 vandalism against a Muslim couple. Who was Tito meeting that night? What is the real nature of his relationship with his wife? Why does Esme's mother hate the snarky publicist so much? Are the Crockets trying to manipulate Des and Mitch by revealing so much so soon? These questions are answered in due time.

In the meantime, we get a picture of a closed and elite Dorset society willing to keep secrets and cover up scandals. We see the imperfections of a so called perfect family and many not so perfect "perfect" marriages. We are witness to the Peyton Place-esque bed-hopping of the residents and the murky tangled relationships that exist. In the midst of it all is Sexy Des, who tries to solve a mystery in her forthright, no-nonsense, take no prisoners manner. And Mitch, whose life-imitates-movies observations often bring the funny. Did I mention these books are quite humorous?

The biggest minus of this book is that I wanted to see more of the residents we'd met in the previous books. This one did bring back Bitsy and her troubled ballerina daughter, Becca. But I really didn't recognize any other Dorseteers from the previous books.

The biggest plus (other than the really cute relationship between Des & Mitch) is the continued evolution of Des' erstwhile partner, Soave. He was a jerk in the first book, by the second book he was actually human. And now in this third book you really actually like him.

I highly recommend.