Thousands of witnesses, thousands of suspects but with the aid of TV the suspect list is soon narrowed down to a small group. This brings together a seemingly disparate bunch of law enforcement officers from the FBI and the local police with the locals being assigned to work with the FBI. Their names sound like something out of a 1960's comic book Detectives Sherwood 'Shot Glass' Reynolds and Josephus 'JJ' Jeffers and FBI agent 'Slam' Virgil. Then the list of funny characters continues, with midgets. a preacher who is into porn, and a demented family of Grandmother, Mother, and Granddaughter and the most powerful man in American football all forming a linked chain of events that goes back 40 years....
The dialogue was crisp and clear, and while the names seemed to be from another era (surely even law enforcement officers in America today don't have such silly names, or is that just me,) this was an up to date tale with nods in the direction of Twitter and Facebook...
It was a tale involving an eye for an eye and good old fashioned revenge, but it is difficult to say to much without giving the plot away.
My only issue with it was that while it was an intriguing story the officers just didn't seem to have to work very hard to get to where they were going, so the story was intriguing but the plot wasn't so much. It just seemed to all fit together like a kids jigsaw, easily, but in an adult crime thriller it should have made them, and us, work harder... having said that it was still a fairly enjoyable read.
Ratings:
Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Plot: 3 out of 5
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Policemen in my community have names like Steve, Raymond, Dennis, Dave, Scott... Not too many Slams!
ReplyDeleteSounds like sort of a cascade of unique characters.
Hi Julia, yea weird names and as I said he could have made the cops work a bit harder but it was still an ok read over a couple of days
ReplyDeleteHi Tom, I just read this short story last week and it was enjoyable, but as u pointed out, it was a crime that was quickly solved. I think if it were a longer book instead of a short, there would have been more character development and plot twists. My only other issue was the way the book just kind of...ended.
ReplyDeleteKey, Thanks for stopping by and for leaving a comment. I think the only 'crime story' that can get away with revealing the guilty person(s)up front is Columbo... Every one else fails.
ReplyDeleteIt's just then down to the degree of failure hence my only 3.5 star