Book Review: The Bright Silver Star

He’s Rich, Young, Handsome, Tortured, Gay, and… Dead
The Bright Silver Star, David Handler (2003)

This is the third in David Handler’s Berger and Mitry Mystery series. As always, I will sprinkle in random passages because they are just so Connecticut.

I read this book over Christmas week when I was at my parent’s house. Upon return home to Connecticut, I immediately returned it to the library without thinking about what I’m doing right now.

Writing a review of the book that is.

At first I was a little annoyed with myself. I have no reference material. No way can I remember that Dodge Crockett was married to Martine but also had an incestual raping past of his multi-millionaire Hollywood starlet daughter Esme not too long ago. I mean, usually getting the names right is important.

Deep breath

When it comes to David Handler’s ridiculous Berger & Mitry series, getting names right is not important. First, these books are decades old but more importantly, each book is packed with a dozen or more new characters that either get murdered or move. In other words, only a few appear book to book.

So really, who cares.

What I care about with this series is how Connecticutty it is. And this mystery series is very Connecticutty. And for that, I love it.

Author David Handler lives in Old Lyme and his fictional setting of Dorset is… Old Lyme. Or rather, a larger Old Lyme that has absorbed nearby landmarks. Like Devil’s Hopyard State Park, which is not too far north in East Haddam in the real world.

But it Hopyard Road does course along the Eight-Mile River! And it absolutely is a windy and dangerous road!

A death (murder? accident? accidental murder?) takes place at the falls at the state park to kick things off. The description of the falls at the state park are fairly accurate… as long as we accept that death is inevitable if you fall there.

Yeah, so the guy who dies there in the beginning is Tito Molina, the most handsome young man in the world who also happens to be box office gold. Oh, and he’s married to Esme. And they’re staying in Dorset for the summer. It’s a whole thing.

I’ve learned that the characters in these books are always “the most” or “the best” or whatever. The estranged wife of another guy is the world’s leading children’s author in the story. I guess that makes sense in the world most adulterous town.

Dorset, Connecticut. Yes. Old Lyme’s stand-in is just oozing with sex.

I’ll let Kirkus Reviews takeover for a second:

Don’t tell anyone, but everyone in Dorset is sleeping around. Patrician disciplinarian Dodge Crockett is going in for S&M with ex-junkie, barely ex-teen Becca, his daughter Esme’s best friend. His cool blond wife Martine is meeting Book Schnook owner Jeff Wachtell, separated from his wife Abby, a famous children’s-book author, who had a brief fling with Tito Molina, the tormented teenaged idol movie star now married to Esme, a recent Oscar winner who also sleeps with Jeff. Will Durslag and his wife Donna, partners in a foodie emporium, are faithful only because transplanted New York film critic Mitch Berger turned her down, staying true to his love, state trooper Desiree Mitry (The Hot Pink Farmhouse, 2002, etc.). More beds heat up until Tito, who punched out Mitch over a bad review of his latest movie, falls over a cliff, and Donna dies in a hot-sheets motel. Des’s former law enforcement partner Rico and his new partner, big-bosomed Yolie, in town to tidy up, get almost nowhere, even with Des riding shotgun, and it’s up to Mitch to write finis to the sad love-gone-awry script.

Handler also has a thing for New Britain. It’s his go-to for blue-collar and/or not so rich.

It’s so weird to me. I guess, in a sense. New Britain is at the northern end of Route 9 and Old Lyme/Dorset is at the southern end on the Sound. And of course New Britain is a bit more hardscrabble than Old Lyme. But c’mon. There are other towns in Connecticut.

Also, as this is my third book in the series, I’m also tired of “Swamp Yankee = white trash borderline criminal.” That’s not what a Swamp Yankee is, but man, Handler loves that trope as well.

And since I’m criticizing language… another painful theme in these books is when Mr. Handler writes black people speaking to each other and – this is different – “sexy talk.” Both are wince-inducing.

The guy above is Mitch Berger, the film critic from New York City who is a widower, a chubby Jew, a nice guy, and in a serious relationship with the woman above, Des Mitry, the black resident trooper in Dorset. At least they aren’t cheating on each other like everyone else in town, and they do love each other.

As cringey as that is, when Des talks with a black female colleague (who has giant boobs that Handler cannot seem to ignore, despite their entirely fictional existence) it’s… so bad. They “smack meat.”

“Smacking meat” is, of course, what black people call shaking hands.

Frog Hollow is Handler’s “poor black people” Connecticut location of choice by the way. This isn’t its first appearance:

But I get it. If you don’t know any of these very real places, you need consistency across books. And it’s not like you’d think Frog Hollow is a real place anyway. So I can let that slide.

Oh yeah, the story. Tito dies, police investigate and in so doing, all sorts of craziness reveals itself. EVERYONE is banging EVERYONE. Like, all these people are so gross. The local Turks who run a Citgo get vandalized which is a very odd little side crime. Then a woman is murdered.

The cops are clueless but Mitch sorts it out simply because he has personal relationships with what is essentially an Old Lyme sex cult. He solves it but of course almost dies which I think might be a recurring theme in each book.

He doesn’t die but the murderer does – and I’d be remiss if I don’t mention that it’s a fairly trite trope in the end. So, so much death in Old Lyme. Truly terrifying.

All these characters likely won’t reappear in a future Berger & Mitry mystery. They just appear, cause havoc, and sink back into the manicured hedges of the wealthy fictional town.

I don’t mind Handler’s pacing at all. If I wasn’t concerned about taking pictures of passages and trying at least vaguely remember everything, I’d rip through these books much faster. I’ve never really been a mass market pop mystery reader, so these are fairly new ground for me. I get the appeal… and I’m again left wondering how my mother would take to this series.

Would she find the black conversations as ridiculous as I do, or would she accept them as accurate? Would she be horrified by all the sex? (Yes. The answer to that is an unmitigated yes.) And isn’t my mother one of the demographics for these books?

Me? I read a lot of books but I’m not. Except… I do get a thrill when Handler does things like this:

He properly identifies the falls at Devil’s Hopyard as Chapman Falls! Be still my heart.

Can’t wait for the next book in the series! (Seriously, I am enjoying the ride.)

Li’l Ol’ Dorset Violent Crime Count:

2 murders, 1 attempted murder, 1 self-defense manslaughter, aggravated assault, wife beating, breaking and entering, drunk driving, incestual rape, lots of borderline rape, and the adultery. My god the adultery So much adultery.

We’ll say… 6 Violent Crimes.

Series Running Total: 21

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