Hurray, it's over! Now we can all spill the beans about where we ~thought~ it was. I'm not going to be emailing any guess to Pete because my solution never got farther than a city. Perhaps my city is right, perhaps wrong, but I think you'll agree that there were plenty of clues that line up with it. So here goes:
I think the city is Baton Rouge, LA. Here are my reasons.
1. The cover of the book is red and Polaris and the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) are represented by
the dot pattern. Pete has mirror-reversed the dots to make it harder to recognize Ursa Minor, and
he has left out one of the dimmer stars in the dipper. The concentric rings are centered on
Polaris -- the pole star for the northern hemisphere. Get it? Red pole = Baton Rouge.
2. "Bourbagne Toast" anagrams to "Baton Rouge bats"
3. "Buffalo Trace Bourbon" has the letters of BATON in order
4. "Stack of Clues" rhymes with Baton Rouge
5. Sue's rubies (red)
6. Lipton tea has a red logo
7. The river of Pee (Mississi-Pee) flows through Baton Rouge
8. Pg. 53: Bulbous, *RED*, hand-blown glass hummingbird feeder
9. Pg. 107: Bicentenial tree -- this is a big clue. Baton Rouge was incorporated in 1817 so this
year is the city's bicentennial.
10. Froggy Mo is a neighborhood in Baton Rouge (compare with My Froggy)
11. Zeeland Place is also a neighborhood in Baton Rouge. Page 21: "Candles infused with Febreze" --> ANDL + EZE,
plus the bicycle trip in New Zealand, plus Fred & Myrtle Flutie lived in Bluff, New Zealand
12. LSU's school colors are gold and purple (Purple Rain). (Side note: Prince's full name is Prince Rogers NELSON).
13. Another big clue: Two blocks from Nelson's apartment is a "charming, intimate hotel with a RED brick
and limestone facade and a gay dating CLUB" --> RED CLUB = Baton Rouge
14. Lots of other reds: Pg. 23: cranberry juice, pg. 24: red beard, crimson, "red of reds", blood red;
pg. 136: Quarry Girl has ginger hair; pg. 140: red onion
15. Pg. 68: 200 thousand dollars (bicentennial again)
16. Bette Midler (her first movie: "The Rose") + pg. 13 "four big imperial roses" (and there is Four Roses
bourbon) + pages 50-53: "Stop and smell the roses"
There are others that are more subtle, but these were the main clues that had me stuck on Baton Rouge.
I was really taken with the number of "red" clues as well, but then I started thinking about another thing that goes with red -- "herring". After that, I started viewing them all with suspicion.