I have not read any of the other books in the series and don't feel that I needed to to get a good story from this book. Unfortunately, there really wasn't a good story here.
Lotte Goldman does a talk show that is really a bit of trash media. DeAnna Kroll is her assistant. There is Shelley, Maria, Carmencita, Sarah, and many others who work for her in some capacity. She has a couple of men, Prescott, Maximillian, Itzhak, etc.
Murders happen and a famous ex-FBI agent, Gregor Demarkian, becomes involved.
The case is ultimately solved. ( )

#11 in the Gregor Demarkian series.

It's Hannukah, and Donna Moradanyan and her cohorts on Cavanaugh St. have gone all out to celebrate, with menorahs and other symbols of the festival in every window and on every door.

But that's not all that's happening. Father Tibor Kasparian's sponsor for entering the US was Rabbi David Goldman, rabbi of a Conservative synagogue in the Philadelphia area. Rabbi Goldman's sister Lotte is a psychiatrist whose wildly popular daily television talk show focuses on sex, scandal and celebrities. Lotte and her executive producer, Dee Ann Kroll want Gregor for their show, to talk about serial killers. Tibor uses his influence to persuade a most reluctant Demarkian to appear when Goldman, Kroll and their crew produce their show for 2 weeks in Philadelphia. But before the New York-based show ever got on the road, two crew members are murdered and another is a victim of an attempted homicide. Both Lotte and Dee Ann want Demarkian to help with the investigation.

Father Tibor has another item on his agenda: the recent defacing of a local Hasidic synagogue with graffiti from a survivalist organization known as the White Knights, Defenders of Race and Faith; Tibor, naturally, wants Gregor's help in tracking down the offenders.

But before Gregor can do much of anything, yet another crew member is murdered, this time in Philadelphia.

Festival of Deaths is another in a series written to formula and which depends heavily on the color that the Armenian ethnicity lends to Cavanaugh St 's residents. As has been true in previous books, the contributions of Father Tibor, Bennis Hannaford and other residents of Cavanaugh St. are pretty much reduced to somewhat more than cameo roles. The humor, while still there and still very dependent on Haddam's writing style, is not as much present and not as sparkling as the first few books in the series. But in this book, she has introduced several subplots; the one between a disgruntled crew member of the TV show and the rest of her colleagues is really funny.

While not as good as the first in the series, the plot is improved over previous books. ( )