The Hampton Connection - Softcover

Vincent Lardo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0749932937 ISBN 13: 9780749932930

Publisher: Piatkus Books, 2002

Synopsis

Another wicked romp in Long Island's playground of the rich and famous, where Hollywood heavyweights and Broadway bigwigs scramble for a piece of the action.

It's the height of the season in East Hampton, and there isn't a soul who'd dare be caught dead in anything that doesn't boast a designer label. So Lieutenant Christopher Oliveri isn't surprised to learn that the corpse before him is wearing a Freddy Parc jockstrap around her pretty neck.

When Paul Monroe, current poster boy for Freddy Parc briefs, discovers the body of a young woman in the Amagansett cottage he shares with pal Bill Ryan and Ryan's fiance, Lisa Kennedy, he swears he never saw her-before he saw her dead. With Bill and Lisa on stage at the John Drew Theater at the time of the murder, Paul Monroe is the prime suspect. This is bad news for Michael Reo, who plans to take the story of the Hamptons' last big murder mystery to the silver screen. There may be such a thing as perfect casting, but has he cast a little too close to type by setting his sights on Paul Monroe?

Michael is sure his leading man is innocent, and goes on the prowl to clear him. The list of suspects includes names usually seen on movie screens and theater marquees, and Lieutenant Oliveri is ready and eager to see one of them in a mug shot.

About this title

About the Author:

The Hampton Connection is Vincent Lardo's second novel.

From Publishers Weekly:

"The Jockstrap Murder" has a nice ring to it, no? At least that's what the media think about their own headline for the grisly centerpiece of Lardo's Hampton Affair sequel, set once again on the eponymous East Coast playground of the rich. Heather, daughter of old salt Job Ryan, and her brother Ryan's adopted son, Bill, become reluctant accomplices in a cocaine-running operation. When the heat is turned up, Bill leaves home, only to return a year later for his acting debut at the John Drew Theater. While Bill is sweating under the footlights, Heather is murdered in Bill's rental cottage, a Freddy Parc designer jockstrap used as a garrote. Paul Monroe, the model whose body infamously appears in Freddy Parc ads, is one of Bill's cottage roommates. Paul is also the godson of producer Michael Reo, who has film plans for Paul. When Paul falls under suspicion by local detectives, Michael goes to bat. Once again Lardo proves he knows his territory, right down to the eateries and the attitudes, providing social commentary on the landscape's transformation from potato patch to Hollywood East. The locked-cottage mystery is compelling, raising a whole slew of case-related questions, not least of which is whodunit? And why with a Freddy Parc jockstrap? One crucial oversight on the detectives' part does strain credibility. Still, Lardo's tinselly tale of greed, power and murder is entertaining enough to help readers gear up for the beach season ahead.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Piatkus Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0749932937
• ISBN 13: 9780749932930
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304