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Fitness = Death when Nick Hoffman heads back to the gym right after a vacation, finding himself caught in a Desperate Housewives-type mystery. Michigan Muscle is a state-of-the-art health club adjacent to the State University of Michigan. Boasting luxurious facilities, the latest equipment, and topnotch personal trainers, it's a palatial complex for fitness. But every palace has its intrigue, and when Nick stumbles across a dead trainer, he's drawn into a web of passion and privilege unlike anything he's ever experienced before. The prime suspect because he's the one who discovered the body, Nick has to work this mystery out to its bitter end.
"If you like your mysteries smart, witty, and steaming with suspense, you
won't find a better read than Lev Raphael's Hot Rocks. The new spa in town is proving hazardous to Nick's health, and it's great to be back at his side
while he sleuths in the sauna. Lev's turned up the heat in one of my
favorite series in crime fiction."
Linda Fairstein
Author of Bad Blood
"Hot Rocks is a comic mystery of bad manners, written with the suspenseful
touch of Alfred Hitchcock bred to the epigrammatic wit of Oscar Wilde. The
hero of the tale, assistant professor Nick Hoffman, is among the most lovably
erudite characters in all of mystery fiction."
Robert Eversz
Author of Zero to the Bone
"This is a refreshingly literate mystery without being the least bit pretentious. It's filled with evocative, beautifully readable prose that has plenty of flow, and no unnecessary words. It's also a lot of fun, sparkling with sharp wit and earthy humor, lightly seasoned with a sprinkle of the sort of casual literary capping I adore in British Golden Age mysteries. The plot is given depth through a variety of subplots, such as the new twist in Stefan's life—and therefore in Nick's—that promises to make things interesting going forward... However, what really makes the story, and the whole series, is the engaging protagonist. Nick is... very funny and very good company... This is a series entry, but perfectly enjoyable as a standalone. Recommended."
Kim Malo
MyShelf.com
"Raphael's series hero, Nick Hoffman, is in midlife crisis when he and partner Stefan Borowski return from their Caribbean vacation (marred by murder, of course; see Tropic of Murder, 2004) to resume teaching at the State University of Michigan. Nick's musings over getting older halt abruptly when he realizes that his companion in the health-club steam room is head trainer and all-around stud Vlado Zamario, and he's dead. Before you can say 'smoldering temptress,' series regular Professor Juno Dromgoole is on the scene, spreading the news that it's murder and proposing to solve it with Nick, the obvious suspect because of his previous involvements with homicide. Given Vlado's encounters with the women at Michigan Muscle, the plot quickly and deliciously thickens into layers of domestic discord highly seasone d with compromising photos. Raphael's latest smoothly delivers a satisfying mystery while providing insight into the middle-aging of America, gay marriage, the excitement of sleuthing as a means of exercising control over our lives, the 'Orwellian' Patriot Act, and more."
Booklist
"Nick Hoffman, the protagonist in this wonderful series by Lev Raphael, discovers
that the man near him in the steam room is not sleeping, but dead. Nick is a
member of the gym [actually a palatial complex complete with restaurant and
various courts for basketball, tennis and the like] where Vlado Zamaria, the
victim, was head of personal training. Vlado is described as having a perfect
body and ‘Byronic hair, ironic eyes,’ and Nick muses, ‘In this vast temple of
health, he was a god. What could have brought him down from his pedestal?’
But it seems as though there is no lack of suspects: 'He was young, hot, horny, and
his clientele were mostly bored, rich, middle-aged women.' However, since Nick
was the one who discovered the body, he is seen as a prime suspect, and he goes
about trying to ferret out the identity of the murderer. He realizes that the
murder was ‘probably committed by someone I had spoken to, or even lived near
to.’
The novel is, as one would expect from this author, filled with sly wit and
sharp observations that make one smile and nod and occasionally say to oneself
‘Of course!’ It also contains ready asides, quotes and allusions to history,
music and the arts—visual, film, literary—that are as good as the mystery at
the heart of the book. Which is very good indeed."
Midwest Book Review