Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Hattie Hoffman, actress, student, enigma…
The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman
What you need to know before your trail
Eighteen-year-old Hattie Hoffman is a talented actress, and is a popular student and girl, loved by everyone in her Minnesotan hometown. When she’s found stabbed to death on the opening night of her school play, the tragedy ripples through the community, with waves of shock and disbelief
Sheriff Del Goodman, a close friend of Hattie’s dad, vows to find her killer, but the investigation soon reveals that Hattie was just as much an actress off stage as she was on. What did happen in the life of Hattie Hoffman and who was the girl behind the masks?
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Minnesota
Pine Valley is fictional
Hattie Hoffman is a girl from a small midwestern town – Pine Valley – who has found life, small town life, very hard to deal with. Pine Valley is a town where everyone knows your name and where everyone knows your business and more.
She is a lost soul in a closed community and finds that wearing the mask of the person she wants to be- either on the stage or off it, can make for an interesting and a lot easier life. She has learned the art of manipulation at a very early age, and that dusty small town, she is like a chameleon who waits in plain sight in the dust, in the dry, cloud of expectation to walk about and watch others, behave how others want or expect her to behave.
This rural township in mid-America, could be anywhere – it’s a place where a girl grows up and wants to leave, where the bright stage lights of New York come calling….
The play she is appearing in at the time is aptly ‘The play whose name no – one mentions – The Scottish play – wrapped up in mystery and intrigue not to mention superstition – like Hattie’s life and death.
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This was an interesting novel – it seemed innocent enough – young girl from a small town is murdered…but that’s not even the start of it. This novel has layer upon layer and it not only kicks up that midwestern American dust in the small town where the novel is set, but it blows it in your face and as you’re frantically wiping your eyes, it whips up yet another sand storm of intrigue.
The various viewpoints were well done and new information came to light as I read. The short chapter made this work well and believable as if you were at some gathering and flitting between the people in question. Stranger characters living in that town but what really captured me was the way it was all linked to the play Hattie was starring in – The Scottish Play – very apt and even if you just know the intrigue surrounding it, the powerful images this creates adds layers of intrigue upon layers of intrigue.
This is a character driven novel, a study of a small town community and it’s a memorable read. Remember that girl at school who you thought had it all, was the lead in the play….was it all a farce?
On another note, there were some lovely turns of phrase and coming of age ‘quotes’ sprinkled throughout but one, about books, made me smile: “Every book changes you in some way, whether it’s your perspective on the world or how you define yourself in relation to the world. Literature gives us identity, even terrible literature.”
Hattie Hoffman – your last act was quite something!
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman
Author/Guide: Mindy Mejia Destination: Minnesota Departure Time: 2007, 2008
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
