David Handler - The Hot Pink Farmhouse: A Berger and Mitry Mystery

PRAISE FOR DAVID HANDLERS MYSTERIES

THE HOT PINK FARMHOUSE

The authors skill at depicting everyone from young children to aging adults and investing his characters with delightful quirks or grievous flaws makes this a superior read. The romance between Des and Mitch, an ill-kept secret in tiny Dorset, and bits of film trivia woven smoothly into the narrative add zest.

Publishers Weekly

The style in this book is smooth with tightly woven scenes and believable dialogue. Hangtown Frye is a uniquely lovable character... who stays true to himself throughout the whole novel. I recommend this book if you are looking for an enthralling read.

Mystery News

THE COLD BLUE BLOOD

The Cold Blue Blood is the beginning of what looks to be a swell series. Berger and Mitry are wonderfully drawn characters, and the author has depicted Connecticut so splendidly it seems the most fascinating state in the Union. If I had a hat, Id take it off to David Handler.

Susan Isaacs, author of
Compromising Positions and Long Time No See

This book is a true delight. Chock full of wry observation and propelled by a compelling plot, The Cold Blue Blood is classic Handler. As for characters Berger and Mitry... they better come back and visit again; theyre the best buddy team to come along in years.

Jeffery Deaver, author of
The Blue Nowhere and The Empty Chair

Mitch is a terrific character, full of passion and sensitivity... The New York color is perfectly rendered, as is the Connecticut salt. Heres hoping for many more stories of Des and Mitch.

Booklist

Can a tough African-American cop with a soft spot for feral cats find happiness with a nice Jewish boy who says he does his best work in the dark? Heres hoping that Handler... explores this question in more first-rate puzzlers.

Kirkus Reviews

Definitely an odd-couple team we look forward to seeing more of in future installments of this delightful new series.

Denver Post

ALSO BY DAVID HANDLER

The Cold Blue Blood

AVAILABLE FROM
ST. MARTIN S / MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS

D AVID
H ANDLER

St. Martins Paperbacks

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

THE HOT PINK FARMHOUSE

Copyright 2002 by David Handler.

Excerpt from The Bright Silver Star 2003 by David Handler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-98704-8

Printed in the United States of America

St. Martins Press hardcover edition / November 2002
St. Martins Paperbacks edition / November 2003

St. Martins Paperbacks are published by St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

F OR E ARLE C. D RAKE ,
A WISE AND GENTLE SOUL

THE
H OT P INK
F ARMHOUSE

This wasnt supposed to happen.

She had made a solemn promise to herself about sneaking around in the night this way: Never again. I will not treat another mans wife this way. I will not treat myself this way. But there was a mighty big problem with such a promise, she had discovered. It lasted only until it was put to the flesh test by a certain man, the right man, him. And then it went flying right out the window, along with shame, self-respect, and sanity.

I am not in control of myself, she realized as she steered the rocket-fast Porsche down the narrow, twisting country lane, its twin exhaust pipes burbling in the after-midnight quiet. I am a bad, bad girl.

She parked on Frederick Lane, a few houses down from the little inn, well away from its parking lot, and closed her door very softly when she got out. Sound carried in the village. And it was important that no one hear her coming to him in the night. No one.

The stars were out and she could see her breath in the light of the full harvest moon. There would be a frost come morning, first of the season.

She did not lock the car. No one who grew up in Dorset did. The newcomers locked theirs, of course. Sometimes, in the night, she could hear the alarms going off when raccoons jumped onto their fashionable Land Cruisers. What an intrusive, hostile sound that was. But she could not knock the newcomers. She would not have been able to stay here in her lovely little village, earning the kind of money she was earning, if it werent for them and their kids moving in.

Fallen leaves crackled under her feet as she strode softly toward the darkened inn. The earth smelled of rotting apples, a sweet, moldy aroma that reminded her of when she was a little girl on the farm. As she walked, she thought she heard somebody elses footsteps in addition to her own. She paused, her ears straining, but now heard nothing. Her ears had been playing tricks on her. She resumed walking, her heart beginning to race with anticipation. It was after midnight and she was up to no good and she knew it.

This time her eyes were wide open.

They hadnt been that first time, back when she was working as an au pair the summer after her freshman year of college. A wealthy Park Avenue couple had rented themselves one of the big summer bungalows overlooking the Sound. Two darling little girls they had. The wife was a society skeleton with a hyphenated name and an overbite. And Stephen was a grave, sensitive dreamer who yearned to write sonnets but traded in hedge funds because this was what was expected of him. How tragically romantic he had seemed. And sooo handsome. And then his hyphenate wife had to leave for Kennebunkport when Mumsy took ill. She moved into a guest room to see to the girls. And she and Stephen had talked and talked into the night. There had been soul-baring and there had been tears. And it had happened right there on the living room sofa. Three times, quickly in succession.

The poor man had been positively starved for her, she had told herself.

At summers end she had followed him into the city and their affair had continued in a succession of hotel rooms. She became something of an expert on the relative merits of their various accommodations. The mattresses at The Plaza were the firmest, the club sandwiches at The Carlyle the tastiest, the towels at the St. Regis the most luxuriant. After their trysts, she would ride home on the Metro-North commuter train, asking herself if these seasoned suburbanites could tell by her bruised lips and sated, dreamy countenance that she had just been ravaged by a married man. The career women stared at her with such flinty disapproval, she swore they could. The middle-aged businessmen, they just stared.

And then one day they were caught by his wifes best friend as the two of them came out of the Waldorf. And she discovered that Stephen had done this many times before with many different young girls and she was not special and there was nothing poetic or glorious about it at all. Shed just been having a tawdry affair with a lying creep who should have been treating his wife, his children and any number of sweet young college girls a whole lot better.