Items related to Five Star First Edition Mystery - Scrambled Eggs
Life gets scrambled fast after Jake Wanderman, Shakespeare maven extraordinaire, decides to quit teaching. First, his wife of many years leaves him without telling him why. Says if he can't figure it out himself he deserves to be alone. Jake loves his wife so he is quite upset. Next, his best friend asks him to help a glamorous widow cope with her new problems. He does so and immediately finds himself the object of the widow's attentions. It turns out that seduction is the least of his problems. It seems the widow's late husband was a member of the Russian Mafia and had in his possession a bevy of stolen Faberge eggs. Lots of people are after this treasure and Jake wishes he could get out of the whole thing. Unfortunately for him, it is too late. Forced to deal with the widow, the Russian Mafia, the KGB, the FBI and the NYPD, along with suspicious deaths and abductions as well as a trip to Moscow, Jake must not only survive while quoting appropriate lines from Shakespeare, but win his wife back at the same time.
Boris Riskin and his wife, Kiki, a sculptor, have a daughter and son. They live in Sag Harbor at the eastern end of Long Island where the bay and ocean are nearby and the air is filled with creativity.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"Take a cache of diamond studded eggs, add a dollop of Russian Mafia, KGB, FBI-blend with panache-and you have the ingredients of a gem of a mystery. Author Riskin has done just that and serves it up with all the sparkle of the House of Faberge. A witty and clever read."
-- Vincent Lardo, author of The Hampton Affair and McNally's Bluff
"Jack Wanderman's life is spinning out of control. The retired, Shakespeare-loving English teacher's wife leaves him without an explanation. Then his best friend asks him to help an attractive widow whose late husband was a member of the Russian Mafia. It seems there are stolen Faberge eggs hidden in the widow's home, and various people want them. Jake suddenly finds himself dealing with the New York police, the FBI, the KGB, and assorted mobsters. This fast-moving caper takes Jake from Sag Harbor to Moscow and back again. With a colorful cast of characters and enough action to keep readers on their toes, Riskin has all the ingredients for a very entertaining series. Expect to hear more from Jake Wanderman."
--Booklist, May 2005 (Booklist 20050501)
"Clearly Boris Riskin had a lot of fun dishing up Scrambled Eggs and working with Marijane Meaker's Ashawagh Hall Writers Group, though one suspects that the humor of this Brooklyn-born Sag Harbor resident needed no edit from the kitchen cabinet. A short story writer, Riskin shows in his first novel that he appreciates the different demands of longer fiction: he wastes no time setting up a two-level plot. Hero Jake Wanderman, telling his story in the first person, describes how he .let his best friend, Dr. Morty Adler, who "threw one (of the best parties of the Hamptons' season," talk him into going to one. There he meets, as Morty has planned, a rich widow who beseeches Jake to help her retrieve valuable stolen goods. The second plot line involves Jake's confusion and hurt that his lovely wife, Rosalind, has just walked out on him after 25 years (he hasn't a clue). Of the resolution of both these problematic situations, there can be no doubt. Jake is too likeable not to be successful. A retired English teacher, happily addicted to quoting Shakespeare, he feels it is destiny that Rosalind shares her name with arguably - or, as you like it - Shakespeare's most attractive heroine. Of course, Our Hero will rise to all occasions with dispatch and honor, putting his smart mouth to the service of love and friendship and not incidentally show off, in a charming, adolescent way, his intellectual and physical prowess in order to impress Rosalind. He agrees to help the widow get back her Faberge eggs. But, this being a zany chase caper, Jake will soon find himself involved beyond his wildest expectations with the Russian Mafia in Brighton Beach, post-Stalinist goons in Moscow, the KGB, the FBI and, on another level, with his father who has fallen in love (again), this time with the young daughter of one a Brighton Beach's most notorious criminals, but, hey, it's all in the family. Riskin, who went to the University of Michigan, where he studied creative writing, lists a variety of jobs as well as travel as part of his rich and rewarding life, though now he seems more than content living in Sag Harbor with his beloved wife, Kiki, a sculptor. Odd, then, that Scrambled Eggs scrambles some East End place names while keeping others as they are: Ocean, instead of Dune Road, Hay, instead of Bay Street Theatre, but when Jake comments on a room trashed by hoods, he compares it to "T.J. Maxx after a fifty-percent markdown." Though Sam's Paper gets knocked as. "the celebrity gossip rag. . . Distributed free and in such quantities that it flowed across the land like toxic waste," and The East Hampton Star gets a mention as the paper to which Nec Baldwin repeatedly pitches issue-oriented letters, The Independent, though not named. is alluded to as the "astute" investment by "Jerry the columnist" who bought himself an outlet for his articles. Analogies can overreach (cigarette smoke May 18, 2005 in a seedy bar in Moscow is said to be "as thick as an East Hampton fog"), but it's nice to see Riskin acknowledges local scenes along with references to Russian manners (practically none) and mores (not so different from America's).
He has done his homework - on Faberge eggs, the new Russia. the old Soviet Union, and the Russian community in Brighton Beach: The antic plot may turn on coincidence and accident rather than on the real politik intrigues that define most contemporary political thrillers, but Riskin might reply, that's just fine, that's exactly what I intended. Scrambled Eggs - a light and enjoyable repast."
--The Independent, May 2005 (Doody Enterprises 20050501)
"Jake Wanderman thought early retirement would mean long afternoons with his wife of 25 years. But following a year in Sag Harbor, Rosalind moves out. After moping around for several weeks, Jake goes to a party at Morty and Sherri Adler's, where he meets blond beauty Cynthia Organ, whose dollar-bill green eyes shine with excitement as she shows him an attache case filled with Faberge Imperial eggs she discovered after the abrupt demise of her husband Boris. Soon Jake gets a visit from Jascha Solofsky, who has his thug Pyotr whack Jake upside the head as he demands the eggs. But Cynthia's already given them to Roby Welch, the socialite Rosalind's bunked with since leaving Jake. At Toby's house, Jake and Cynthia find their host, Rosalind, and antiques dealer Cormac Blather duct-taped to chairs and FBI agent Mackelworth dead upstairs. The NYPD's Bill Catalano insists that Mackelworth isn't FBI but an agent of Misha Bialkin, a Russian mobster out of Brighton Beach. To sidestep the American branch of the Russian mob, Jake flies to Moscow for a meeting with Cormac's contact, ex-spy Nikolai Pankov, but ends up in the hands of an ex-KGB agent Putlezhev with only a beautiful girl named Anna to save him. "Riskin's debut is less Brighton than Coney Island, with thrills, spills and double-crosses beyond number."
--Kirkus Reviews, April 2005 (Kirkus Review 20050401)
From Booklist:
-- Vincent Lardo, author of The Hampton Affair and McNally's Bluff
"Jack Wanderman's life is spinning out of control. The retired, Shakespeare-loving English teacher's wife leaves him without an explanation. Then his best friend asks him to help an attractive widow whose late husband was a member of the Russian Mafia. It seems there are stolen Faberge eggs hidden in the widow's home, and various people want them. Jake suddenly finds himself dealing with the New York police, the FBI, the KGB, and assorted mobsters. This fast-moving caper takes Jake from Sag Harbor to Moscow and back again. With a colorful cast of characters and enough action to keep readers on their toes, Riskin has all the ingredients for a very entertaining series. Expect to hear more from Jake Wanderman."
--Booklist, May 2005 (Booklist 20050501)
"Clearly Boris Riskin had a lot of fun dishing up Scrambled Eggs and working with Marijane Meaker's Ashawagh Hall Writers Group, though one suspects that the humor of this Brooklyn-born Sag Harbor resident needed no edit from the kitchen cabinet. A short story writer, Riskin shows in his first novel that he appreciates the different demands of longer fiction: he wastes no time setting up a two-level plot. Hero Jake Wanderman, telling his story in the first person, describes how he .let his best friend, Dr. Morty Adler, who "threw one (of the best parties of the Hamptons' season," talk him into going to one. There he meets, as Morty has planned, a rich widow who beseeches Jake to help her retrieve valuable stolen goods. The second plot line involves Jake's confusion and hurt that his lovely wife, Rosalind, has just walked out on him after 25 years (he hasn't a clue). Of the resolution of both these problematic situations, there can be no doubt. Jake is too likeable not to be successful. A retired English teacher, happily addicted to quoting Shakespeare, he feels it is destiny that Rosalind shares her name with arguably - or, as you like it - Shakespeare's most attractive heroine. Of course, Our Hero will rise to all occasions with dispatch and honor, putting his smart mouth to the service of love and friendship and not incidentally show off, in a charming, adolescent way, his intellectual and physical prowess in order to impress Rosalind. He agrees to help the widow get back her Faberge eggs. But, this being a zany chase caper, Jake will soon find himself involved beyond his wildest expectations with the Russian Mafia in Brighton Beach, post-Stalinist goons in Moscow, the KGB, the FBI and, on another level, with his father who has fallen in love (again), this time with the young daughter of one a Brighton Beach's most notorious criminals, but, hey, it's all in the family. Riskin, who went to the University of Michigan, where he studied creative writing, lists a variety of jobs as well as travel as part of his rich and rewarding life, though now he seems more than content living in Sag Harbor with his beloved wife, Kiki, a sculptor. Odd, then, that Scrambled Eggs scrambles some East End place names while keeping others as they are: Ocean, instead of Dune Road, Hay, instead of Bay Street Theatre, but when Jake comments on a room trashed by hoods, he compares it to "T.J. Maxx after a fifty-percent markdown." Though Sam's Paper gets knocked as. "the celebrity gossip rag. . . Distributed free and in such quantities that it flowed across the land like toxic waste," and The East Hampton Star gets a mention as the paper to which Nec Baldwin repeatedly pitches issue-oriented letters, The Independent, though not named. is alluded to as the "astute" investment by "Jerry the columnist" who bought himself an outlet for his articles. Analogies can overreach (cigarette smoke May 18, 2005 in a seedy bar in Moscow is said to be "as thick as an East Hampton fog"), but it's nice to see Riskin acknowledges local scenes along with references to Russian manners (practically none) and mores (not so different from America's).
He has done his homework - on Faberge eggs, the new Russia. the old Soviet Union, and the Russian community in Brighton Beach: The antic plot may turn on coincidence and accident rather than on the real politik intrigues that define most contemporary political thrillers, but Riskin might reply, that's just fine, that's exactly what I intended. Scrambled Eggs - a light and enjoyable repast."
--The Independent, May 2005 (Doody Enterprises 20050501)
"Jake Wanderman thought early retirement would mean long afternoons with his wife of 25 years. But following a year in Sag Harbor, Rosalind moves out. After moping around for several weeks, Jake goes to a party at Morty and Sherri Adler's, where he meets blond beauty Cynthia Organ, whose dollar-bill green eyes shine with excitement as she shows him an attache case filled with Faberge Imperial eggs she discovered after the abrupt demise of her husband Boris. Soon Jake gets a visit from Jascha Solofsky, who has his thug Pyotr whack Jake upside the head as he demands the eggs. But Cynthia's already given them to Roby Welch, the socialite Rosalind's bunked with since leaving Jake. At Toby's house, Jake and Cynthia find their host, Rosalind, and antiques dealer Cormac Blather duct-taped to chairs and FBI agent Mackelworth dead upstairs. The NYPD's Bill Catalano insists that Mackelworth isn't FBI but an agent of Misha Bialkin, a Russian mobster out of Brighton Beach. To sidestep the American branch of the Russian mob, Jake flies to Moscow for a meeting with Cormac's contact, ex-spy Nikolai Pankov, but ends up in the hands of an ex-KGB agent Putlezhev with only a beautiful girl named Anna to save him. "Riskin's debut is less Brighton than Coney Island, with thrills, spills and double-crosses beyond number."
--Kirkus Reviews, April 2005 (Kirkus Review 20050401)
Jake Wanderman's life is spinning out of control. The retired, Shakespeare-loving English teacher's wife leaves him without an explanation. Then his best friend asks him to help an attractive widow whose late husband was a member of the Russian Mafia. It seems there are stolen Faberge eggs hidden in the widow's home, and various people want them. Jake suddenly finds himself dealing with the New York police, the FBI, the KGB, and assorted mobsters. This fast-moving caper takes Jake from Sag Harbor to Moscow and back again. With a colorful cast of characters and enough action to keep readers on their toes, Riskin has all the ingredients for a very entertaining series. Expect to hear more from Jake Wanderman. Barbara Bibel
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Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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- PublisherFive Star
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 1594142912
- ISBN 13 9781594142918
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages292
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