Burning Down the House: A Nick Hoffman Novel (Nick Hoffman Mysteries) | 
| Author: Lev Raphael
Publisher: Walker & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $0.94
You Save: $24.01 (96%)
New (8) Used (19) Collectible (1) from $0.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 1212136
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0802733654
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780802733658
ASIN: 0802733654
Publication Date: October 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: h - ex-lib, mylar cover, sticker on first page, stamp on top page ends, minor wear
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
Nick Hoffman's State University of Michigan is a place where the Borgias and the Marx Brothers would be equally at home. Heading into the Christmas season, SUM is being torn apart by bizarre attempts to make it more diverse while an autocratic new provost pushes for a White Studies program and Nick faces not only a tenure battle but conflicting requests for support in a battle for department chair. With his professional life a mix of seasonal chaos and departmental warfare, Nick discovers that he's not only attracted to the outrageously sexy Juno Dromgoole and disturbed by these disorienting new feelings in his life, but also the target, along with Juno, of a vicious harassment campaign that escalates into stalking, assault, and attempted murder. There's certainly no shortage of suspects, only solid clues. The decisions Nick faces may change his life forever...if he survives.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 A compelling read. August 25, 2004
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This books starts off funny, drew me right into the story. I kept watching for a major crime (murder) but there wasn't one. One of the book's characters said the worst mysteries are when there's a murder right off. I totally disagree with him. I didn't recognize it as a forwarning but it wasn't long after that that I noticed the cover of the book said "novel", not mystery. But by then I was engrossed in Nick's problems and read on through the night to the end, which was a little disappointing. I notice there are many reviews here by people posting their first and only review. This suggests that whether they did or did not like the book, they too, felt compelled to keep reading to the end, just as I did.
 Burning with Suspense December 2, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Lev Raphael has managed with his Nick Hoffman series to not only entertain us with Academia and Murder, but has gone beyond the "formula". Like Nick and Stefan in the kitchen, Lev has added the extra ingredients to his characters that make them more real to the reader.
His most recent addition to the Nick Hoffman series, burning Down the House, is a definite variation on the normal mystery theme. It takes the reader through the twist and turns of "the mystery" at hand, as well as Nick's on-going inner dilemma with an attraction for a certain other professor. And, unlike most series mysteries, rather than the tale ending with the catching of the killer, a much larger, more encompassing story begins to unfold. Apparently our boy Nick is in for more than just a tidy murder in his next adventure...
Stellar! July 10, 2003
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This series has to be one of the most under-rated in the country. It's witty, well-written, compelling and original.
The latest installment takes the academic satire to new highs and new lows and presents the narrator with profound dilemmas. The scenes where Nick contemplates and then actually goes shopping for a gun, because he feels so threatened and vulnerable, are pricelss: touching, disturbing, and very funny. Nobody else could pull off this combination so deftly.
Taut, twisted and telicious... July 8, 2003
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have read all the Nick Hoffman series and they keep getting better. Mr. Raphael knows how to superbly blend Judaica, gay relationships and academia. It is not often a mystery story also informs, such as, the tensions of a gay male marriage or the inside backstabbing of college campuses. I know these climes. Mr. Raphael makes them palatable, funny (some times) and delighfully wicked. I pass at least 5 bookstores a day en route to work, and I have chased down Mr. Raphael's works for his use of language, his integration of wonderful quotes and for making the reading experience a woven tapestry, not some wretched car chase. Bravo! I say this as a reader of history, mystery and biography who comsumes 6-10 books a week. I won't suffer through anything unless it scintillates. This author does.
 Sorry, Nick, you flunked out this time! March 4, 2003
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I would like to add one more expression to the myriad of multilingual musings that salt and pepper this book in the guise of intellectual inspiration - and that is caveat emptor! Unfortunately, the reader won't be able to say they weren't warned - actually, twice warned. First, on the book cover where the former "A Nick Hoffman Mystery" subtitle has been replaced by a new "A Nick Hoffman Novel" subtitle. Then, on page 24 when Nick's lover Stefan, a novelist himself, tells us how he would write a mystery. "Why not create tension differently and have the murder come late - or maybe not at all - play expectation, threat or menace. The threat of a crime." That's exactly what Raphael does with this book. And after building up the expectation of something going to "happen" he just leaves us with the expectation of something bigger and more menacing yet to come in the next book of the series.Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the author's writing skills in the first four books in this series. He has used wit and satire to spear the pompous world of academe. Unfortunately, in this book, SUM (State University of Michigan) and its inhabitants have become a total lampoon of some Animal House. Things are pushed to the point of straining a person's credulity - Whiteness Studies and neo-Nazi administrative staff. Add to that the fact that all the female characters from the new provost Merry Glinka to Juno Dromgoole are just caricatures drawn in a very unflattering and unfavorable manner. Only the elderly and infirm are spared the author's misogyny. Which only makes it stranger when Nick, who has spent a lifetime (and 15 years with Stefan) with a totally male sexual orientation, suddenly becomes obsessed with what it would be like to have sex with Juno Dromgoole. I thought this was just an early mid-life crisis, until he developed and equally strange obsession to buy a gun. Good grief, he's turning into another one of the SUMatics! Talk about topsy-turvy! The characters are just wandering around searching not for the plot, but for some reason why they are there in the first place. I realize that as a "novel" this book is entitled to have an ambiguous ending. But, since the author is a student of the mystery genre he should realize that it's not nice to leave your readers hanging at the close of a 290-page book. Nick Hoffman worked better in the mystery genre. My rating - a full ***** for the author's way with words, but only ** for the book as a whole. Sorry, Nick, even grading on a curve couldn't get you a higher score. As a final comment, what's with the book jacket illustration featuring the face from a Third Reich sculpture? Taken with the Whiteness Studies and the new storm-trooper staff, does this point to a fascist plot to take over SUM?
|
|
|
