What I Tell You Three Times Is False by "Samuel Holt"

Samuel Holt is the main character and narrator of this book -- the third of four in the series, all published in the '80s -- but Donald E. Westlake is the man behind Holt.

Holt is an actor who lucked into the kind of role that both makes and destroys a career: he played a two-fisted TV detective named Jack Packard (in the Magnum, P.I. mode) long enough to make enough money to last him for the rest of his life -- and long enough that he was thoroughly typecast so that he fears he'll never get another acting job. He splits his time between the coasts (and two girlfriends); keeps trying, in a low-key way, to get acting work; and stumbles into murders every so often.

Three Times is more of a cozy than the first two novels in the series were, which is appropriate, since it's a homage or retelling of that Agatha Christie novel that has to change its name every generation because another word is unusable in polite company. (That's the book now called ...And Then There Were None; I expect "none" will become a hideous slur against something any day now, just to keep the streak going.)

Holt was called to a remote Caribbean island to take part in a short film for a cancer charity; he's portray Packard, while other typecast actors play Charlie Chan, Miss Marple, and Sherlock Holmes. And, of course, as soon as he gets there, a massive hurricane cuts the fortress-like house off from the outside world for an indeterminate time...and the deaths start occurring.

The whole house is a locked room, and the murders each have their own idiosyncrasies and particularities, so there's a lot of talking about suspects and possibilities, in the best old cozy tradition. This isn't a kind of book I've ever read much, or wanted to read much, but I can enjoy it when a writer I like is making fun of it. (Though Westlake-as-Holt here is taking the formula almost completely seriously; this is a light mystery, but not a funny one.)

I'm reading this series because I'm a big Westlake fan and I'm getting down to his more obscure, minor, or hard-to-find books; I'd strongly recommend it only to people in a similar situation. For the rest of you, there are piles of newer books along the same lines that are at least as good and which your friends might actually have heard of.