BOOK REVIEW – The Rich And The Dead: A Novel

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The Rich and the Dead: A Novel

• Author: Liv Spector
• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (March 18, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062258397
• ISBN-13: 978-0062258397
• Cover price $13.99

Sleepless again, I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and took out the proof copy of The Rich and the Dead I had just received that day. It is a cold case who-dun-it.

New Year’s Day 2015 twelve people all members of the secretive Janus Society are massacred on Star Island, South Beach. Lila Day, detective fails to break the case. Three years later billionaire Teddy Hawkins sees her out to send her back in time three months before the murders. Her job working undercover is to gather evidence not to save the people which would change time, problematic for her since she falls in love with Dylan Rhodes knowing he will be shot in a neighborhood drive by.

Reinvented as Camilla Dayton, Lila time travels to wealthy Miami. and infiltrates the philanthropic Janus Society. Her quest to discover who murdered socialite Effie Webster, realtor Meredith Sloan, cosmetics giant Vivienne Hunter, hotel magnate Chase Haverford, Tennis champ sam Logan, art dealer Javier Martinez, political kingmaker Fernando Salazar, manufacturing baron Theo von Fick, cement titan Adebayo Oluwa, TV host Rusty Browder, financier Khaled Fathallah, and mall enterpreneur Neville Crawley is not answered until she returns back to 2018. Her words to Teddy Hawkins, “You can’t change fate,” and visit to Dylan then help her solve the mass murder. Too many suspects have too many alibis. Who was the victim? Who was the villain? Read The Rich and the Dead to find out.

Personal thoughts on this novel:
Logically only a true scientist with a Mensa brain can comprehensively mesh future discoveries with present day realities.
Other than Asimov’s Robot sci-fi crime novels, I prefer my mysteries pure, plain, simple–deceptively simple much like The Murder of Roger Ackeroyd.
Limit forensics please for this picky reader. Include no gratuitous sex that doesn’t envelope plot. Allow only character driven romance. Forget extraneous subplots.

The Rich and the Dead was a quick read. Wisely Spector omitted time machine technicalities. However, I wish she had thrown out a few more clues mixed in with some red herrings. Its plot left me guessing until the last pages. I had my suspicions early on but disregarded them because of the absence of evidence. The plot left me guessing until the last pages. If the author writes more Lila Day/Teddy Hawkins books, I plan to check them out.