Cast the First Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery (Ellie Stone Mysteries Book 5)

I really, really love books featuring a female protagonist who is clever, resourceful and mostly unafraid. I also like good mysteries with unpredictable plot twists, believable motives and unexpected endings. And I admire any book that is written in such a beautiful, rich and coherent language that you can just glide through it, blissfully admiring the scenery, rather than hacking your way through a jungle of twisted words and overgrown sentences.Cast the First Stone is all that and much more. It is also an insightful portrait of 1960s Hollywood with its habits, morals and characters. As if pulled by an invisible string, those flat black and white photos of old Hollywood and LA that we have all seen suddenly pop out and turn into colorful three-dimensional images. A word of warning though - once you start reading it, you won't be able to put it down until the end.

This was the best yet.! Jim is improving with every book. Good, fun read

I raced through this book. The prose is perfect. The characters are beautifully-drawn. The mystery is believable yet surprising. Ziskin recreates 1960s Los Angeles so vividly, it's almost tangible. I could smell the surfboard wax. All of Ziskin's books are amazing. I've made fast friends with Ellie Stone and can't wait for her next mystery.

This has been James Ziskin's best Ellie Stone mystery so far. My only complaint is I've finished the book. I was glad to tour the Hollywood Hills with Ellie and follow her progress in solving this latest mystery. I can't wait till the next book comes out. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Run out and get it so you can enjoy.

Below is my original review. The author has commented on this review and I think his comments pointing out questionable areas in my review valid. I strongly recommend if you read my review below that you also read his comments which will give you his perspective.******This is a real mystery complete with the protagonist a plucky girl reporter not only after the story, but after the killer. Set in 1962, the protagonist is a bit ahead of her time exhibiting modern sensibilities when it comes to gay and lesbian and even extending to blacks and browns in a short passage. This reader doesn’t see any reason a 1962 era reporter can’t have attitudes appropriate to that time but maybe it was too much for the publisher or author or both to be realistic. She even uses the term ‘gay’ to mean homosexual which didn’t come into common use until a decade later (post Stonewall).The reporter, from a tiny town called New Holland, NY but which matches the actual town of Holland, NY, tackles the dual mysteries of who killed the producer with where is the New Holland hero set who set off for Hollywood and now has landed a Big Part. The Big Part vanishes when the local hero does so the reporter is off on a two branched quest to put the puzzle together.To nobody’s surprise, she succeeds using a good deal of energy, a double serving of cleverness, a heaping spoonful of luck (and connections) as well as an unfailing ability to conclusion leap to the correct next step in the game. It's a well-constructed mystery book which plays fair with the reader and characters yet it left me utterly dissatisfied. The reason for my discontent was that I didn’t believe for a split second that a town of roughly 3,000 would send a reporter to Hollywood on an all-expense paid junket to get the story of the Big Part. It grew even less believable for me that the paper would keep her there after the Big Part evaporated.Finally, and to my utter disbelief, the reporter seems to care about the missing hero despite being kicked about by him and his friends (in a non-physical sense). In the end, I enjoyed the structure of the book because it’s a real mystery novel. I was a good deal less enchanted with the players as well as the motives. The latter affected me more than the former which leaves the entire book a rather lackluster memory in this reviewer’s mind.