Hearse of a Different Color

by Tim Cockey

Book Overview

Hitchcock Sewell, Baltimore's hippest undertaker and civilian sleuth, is back in a second sly, original mystery. One of the most charming and offbeat amateur detectives to come around in years,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786865717
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

JUST AS GOOD AS THE FIRST HEARSE!

Hitchcock (Hitch) Sewell, Baltimore's most eligible undertaker and murder mystery mortician, is back for another totally enjoyable adventure. This time around, someone has left a potential client (body) on the front steps of Sewell and Sons Family Funeral Home in the middle of a wake for a prestigious heart surgeon and a pre-Christmas snowstorm.In case you missed the first book in this series (The Hearse You Came In On), there are no sons at Sewell and Sons, just Hitch and his Aunt Billie. And the body on the doorstep is that of an ordinary (though formerly beautiful) waitress from a low-end airport pickup bar and grill. Since the police are involved with a series of "shot in the foot" murders, Hitch (being Hitch) decides he will find out who killed the women, especially after he meets her sister.As you'll discover, there is this mutual attraction between Hitch and women. In this book alone, there's his ex-wife Julia; Bonnie, his weather-girl girlfriend; Vickie, the victim's sister; clients' widows plus a few B-girls and strippers thrown in for good measure. In all, it's a totally enjoyable mix.Anyway, the plot really starts getting complicated and it becomes more than a case of who killed the waitress and why. And just when you think you've got the whole thing figured out Cockey throws you another twist. In other words, you'll love this one. Now I've just got one more book in the series to read before the new one (fourth) is published in February.

Shaping up to be a great series

Tim Cockey writes gently amusing mysteries--not laugh out loud, make-your-sides-ache hilarious, but good-natured prose that makes you smile now and then. This second book in what I hope will be a long series, is as amiable as the first, wonderfully well-plotted, with good characters--particularly ex-wife Julia who's a uniquely believable creation.Poor old Hitch can't resist the ladies, but, mercifully, the author is reserved in his renderings of Hitch's dalliances and doesn't subject the reader to a lot of tiresome descriptions of meshing body parts. He focuses instead on personality (the weathergirl Bonnie in this volume is especially well done, as is Hitch's Aunt Billie) and on attraction predicated on character rather than on pure sex appeal. In itself, this is refreshing. Combined with a true talent for quirky plotlines, the Hearse series is entertaining and, even better, satisfying. It is delightful to read a mystery where everyone is suspect, and it's impossible to predict who "did" it.Most highly recommended.

Hilarious As Always

Endlessly entertaining, even if you're not an avid mystery reader (which I'm not). Get it for the summer. His first book, the Hearse You Came In On, is also good.

Tim, you've done it again!

The second novel in Tim Cockey's series featuring amateur sleuth/undertaker Hitchcock Sewell is another delightful romp. Hitch finds himself at the center of another case of murder (well, the corpse sort of turns up on his doorstep) and must wade through the not-so-usual assortment of suspects, shady characters and femme fatales.Cockey's wry wit, excellent dialogue and engaging characters are one again in evidence in this higly recommended novel!Here's hoping that Hitch has a very long life.Once again, Tim, kudos!

Great amateur sleuth tale with lots of off the wall humor

The blizzard that hit Baltimore without warning made the wake at Sewell & Sons Family Funeral Home difficult enough for managers Hitchcock Sewell and his Aunt Billie. The corpse unceremoniously dumped on the outside steps of the funeral home becomes even more arduous to deal with because Hitch allows his girlfriend Bonnie Nash to persuade him to help her investigate. Bonnie insists that she is an investigative reporter hiding inside the guise of a TV weathergirl, which her peers loosely interpret as an amateur meteorologist who would have been better suited at rock singing. Hitch and Bonnie begin to conduct inquiries, which as with their first case (see THE HEARSE YOU CAME IN) proves that in their minds the shortest distance between two clues is an arc. The duo draws wrong conclusions, fumbles clues, and makes error after error that should star them on a version of Bloopers. Other murders follow that expand an already widening circular investigation making it seem most unlikely that this amateur duet will ever solve the case.The second Hitch-Nash amateur sleuth tale, HEARSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR, is an amusing novel due to the eccentric lead couple and his even more outlandish family members. The investigators seem to always land in weird, humorous situations that bring to life Baltimore's neighborhoods. Surprisingly, Tim Cockey provides an underlying theme involving dysfunctional relationships that keeps the novel from spinning into Pythonesque territory yet never overwhelms the drollery of a top notch tale. Harriet Klausner