Some Like It Hot-Buttered

Some Like It Hot-Buttered by Jeffrey Cohen

During a showing of Young Frankenstein, a customer at Comedy Tonight is killed by eating poisoned popcorn.  Elliott Freed, the owner, takes it upon himself to discover who wanted the man dead, and why they killed him in Elliott's theater.  Although he should be happy that the audience numbers are up at the crime scene, Elliott takes the death personally.  Along with the murder, however, there are pirated movies in the theater's basement, and Elliott begins to wonder what else is going on.

I wanted to like this book, but at the end I was disappointed, in the way a mother is disappointed in a small child.  Probably because Elliott acted too much like a kid: he needed to grow up.  His ex-wife has an affair & divorces him... he doesn't contest it or even show he cares, though he's happy to collect alimony from her.  The two kids that work in the theater know he has no real authority over them, and treat him like he's the younger, dumber kid.  Elliott sits on foam pads instead of buying a couch, plus he supposedly tries to show he cares about the earth by riding a bicycle, yet makes his ex-wife drive him around when it's too far to pedal. I think he was just cheap and lazy. And I'm supposed to believe that suddenly he cares about a murdered stranger & spends days interviewing the victim's relatives & friends? By the end, it was just annoying.