Reprise Review: For the Love of Katie by Erica Lucke Dean

 

Genre: Romantic Comedy/Chick-Lit

Description:

“Newlywed Katie Maxwell is ready to settle down and leave her amateur detective days behind. But when the veil of secrecy surrounding her husband’s latest project takes them to Europe, her penchant for sleuthing lands her in some serious hot foreign water.

Katie will need to think quickly to talk her way out of handcuffs and a Parisian jail cell. Too bad she doesn't speak French.”

Author:

“After walking away from her career as a business banker to pursue writing full-time, Erica moved from the hustle and bustle of the big city to a small tourist town in the North Georgia Mountains where she lives in a 90-year-old haunted farmhouse with her workaholic husband, her 180lb lap dog, and at least one ghost.”

Appraisal:

In To Katie with Love (the first book in this series) between the penultimate and final chapter, the story jumps ahead a year. A lot of things have changed for our protagonist, Katie, and her love interest, Cooper, during that interval. This story looks back on that period and tells the story of how Katie and Cooper jumped from point A to point B.

While a lot changes in that year, the things that don’t change are just as critical. Katie is still clumsy. She worries just a little too much. And she’s … snoopy might be a nice way to put it. In other words, none of the things that made Katie so loveable and her first story such a fun read have changed which made For the Love of Katie a fun read as well. For what it’s worth, I think Cooper is a saint.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Original review published May 9, 2017.

Mild adult situations.

While this is the second book in a series it can be read as a standalone.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Review: The Copper King’s Daughter by Rebecca Jasmine

 Genre: Historical Fiction

Description:

“Butte, Montana, 1905. Parker Copper Mining Company.

For her entire seventeen years, Jules Parker has felt a deep connection to her father’s pitch dark, ear-splittingly loud, and dirty copper mines.

Her father, AJ Parker is the most prosperous and powerful man in the American West. He settled in Butte after first discovering gold, then silver. But because of the quick rise of telephones and the wiring of the modern world, the need for copper wire exploded and what he found deep in his mines turned out to be the most valuable of all—copper iron ore. He built an entire empire, becoming a Copper King with his mines in “the richest hill on earth.”

And while Jules admires all that her father has accomplished, she cannot wait to run the mines, certain that she can bring even more success. The hardest part though… is convincing him.

AJ later announces he may be stepping away from mining to seek a position as Montana state senator, and hires the attractive and refined Ted Jackson—who romances Jules, but who also takes control of Parker Copper.

With Ted in charge, Jules relinquishes her dream of running the mining company, and envisions living a dull and conventional life. Until she meets a handsome stranger, Rand Buckley…who might be sabotaging Parker Copper for his own gain.

Loosely based on real events, Jules gets caught up in a riot at the horse races, gets swept away by a flash flood in the red-light district, befriends a strong woman who would eventually be the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and endures a fiery explosion at Parker Copper’s largest mine that may put an end to the company forever.”

Author:

“Rebecca Jasmine is originally from Montana, with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Montana. She started in apparel/merchandise while living in San Francisco, then embarked upon a career in Los Angeles as a producer and executive producer for television commercial editors. After moving back to Montana to raise their twin sons, she took to writing novels based in her home state. Rebecca and her husband, Jeremy Sauter, currently reside in the Palm Springs, California area. She enjoys reading, playing tennis, mountain biking, and dogs.

Also, Rebecca was an official TSA Pre-check Enrollment Agent, and did a stint as a background extra on Yellowstone, season four/episode one. The Copper King's Daughter is her first novel.”

Appraisal:

This was an interesting read. The history of the old west, especially a copper mining town like Butte, Montana where this takes places, is interesting to consider. The protagonist, Jules, comes from a well-to-do family and the mining company her father owns is the primary employer in the area, which puts her in a strange position. That dynamic impacts expectations and the way she is viewed by her family and the townspeople. But Jules is ahead of her time in many ways, not wanting to conform to those expectations. Throw in a few men romancing her, some strange happenings at the mine and around town, and we’ve got a bit of romance and mystery along with a view of a different time and place to keep the reader engaged, entertained, and possibly learning a bit too.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

A few more proofreading errors than I like to see, all of them minor (extra or missing words in most cases), but not enough to negatively impact my star rating.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Review: Ragtown by Kelly Stone Gamble

 Genre: Historical Fiction

Description:

“Helen Carter lives in the back seat of her father’s Model T in the harsh Nevada desert, surrounded by thousands of desperate souls trying to endure the hardships of the Great Depression. When her father dies while working on the Hoover Dam diversion tunnels, she finds herself alone. In this unforgiving landscape where marriage, prostitution, and starvation seem to be her only viable choices, Helen is determined to defy society's expectations of a young woman and create her own American dream. She relies on her resourcefulness to survive but soon realizes she can't go it alone.

Ezra Deal, a young dam worker, brought his sister to Nevada in search of the father of her child, only to have the man reject her. Tragically, both his sister and the baby pass away during childbirth, leaving Ezra with a profound sense of guilt. Determined to distance himself from any further responsibilities, he focuses on his job and locating the man who callously denied his sister. But when he learns that his friend Helen is running from not only the law but also a Las Vegas gangster, he must decide between his independent lifestyle and helping her.

As Helen and Ezra grow closer and become more invested in the diversion of the Colorado River from its course, their lives parallel this monumental change. Ezra can picture building a life with Helen, but she has other ideas. With the help of a thirteen-year-old runaway, a few prostitutes, a dead desperado, and Ezra, Helen embarks on a journey to live life on her terms.

Incorporating actual dramatic events gleaned from the oral histories of the dam workers, Ragtown highlights a time in American history when ordinary men and women overcame the challenges of the Great Depression and thrived.”

Author:

Midwestern-born Kelly Stone Gamble was a longtime resident of Las Vegas, which got her interested in the history of the area which is reflected in this book. She currently lives in Oklahoma and is a member of the faculty at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

For more, visit Ms Gamble’s website.

Appraisal:

It would be reasonable to view this book as two, maybe three, books in one. Although it surprises me a bit to realize, I liked them all.

The first book is the main story that you’d expect from the book’s description. It’s historical fiction with what could be viewed as two protagonists. The story takes place in the early part of the Great Depression. Jobs are hard to come by and those that are available often have some downsides. Our protagonists, Helen and Ezra, are both living with their families in an area people call Ragtown, near the place where the Hoover Dam is being built. Various factors including deaths in their families and struggles to make ends meet make for an engaging story as both Helen and Ezra’s stories progress. I found this story engaging as it helped drive home how tough things were during that time for a large percentage (dare I say majority) of people without many good ways to improve their lot in life. Once I was introduced to Helen and Ezra I had to find out how things turned out for them.

The main story makes for a decent sized novel by itself. However, at the end of each chapter is a section labeled “Author Note.” Someone could just skip these and they would get the historical fiction story they came for and should be happy with it. But if you want the other two books I mentioned, then read the author notes. These have contents that fall into one of two categories. The majority of them talk about the author’s research into the history of the time and place the story takes place. It expands a bit on some of the specific things mentioned in the story and gives them some historical context. The third book is the remainder of the author notes. These talk a bit about the writing process and give a bit of a glimpse into the writing process. At times in the past I’ve compared getting these kinds of glimpses into the writing process to being the reader’s equivalent of “watching the sausage being made,” but for some reason these notes didn’t strike me that way. I instead found them interesting.

I thought Ragtown was an excellent story. I found the historical part of it interesting, but if that doesn’t appeal to you, skip the author notes and you’ll still be left with an engaging story with characters you’ll like and be pulling for in a story world that’s a nice change of pace.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an ARC (advance reviewer copy) and thus I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 145-150,000 words

Review: The Blackstone Twins Face Off vs Destiny by T. A. Gaylord

 Genre: Dystopian

Description:

“Zoe and Zachary Blackstone are twins, born into a world of madness and survival. Having lost their mother, they are dependent on their grandmother to guide them and a misfit group of wishful dreamers, as they journey hundreds of miles, in hope of finding a cure for the Night Madness. That mysterious affliction takes all men older than puberty. Motherhood is the only known surefire cure. Zachary is doomed to share this fate, but for a rumor, a possible cure. His twin sister Zoe is determined to help him discover this one hope of relief, so they can possibly return to a normal life, a thing of which they've only read about in books.”

Author:

“T.A. Gaylord writes for both young adults and the young at heart, transporting them into a dystopian future world without technology, where the world of today has blown away, like dust from the high desert. Growing up in northern California, T. A. Gaylord has hiked miles of that terrain, and knows it's possibilities and it's dangers. It's beauty and amazing variability has always been an inspiration. As both a nature photographer and later as a caregiver for the disabled, T. A. Gaylord is familiar with both nature's beauty and nature's injustice, including it's unexpected and miraculous possibilities.”

Appraisal:

One of the negatives of the male-dominated HTA (high technology age) that came several generations prior to this story was the disease (for lack of a better word to describe it) that the people in this story call “Night Madness.” This afflicts only males and females who have hit puberty and aren’t either pregnant or breast-feeding. The focus of this story is obviously on the Blackstone twins, Zoe and Zachary. They live in what they call a coven, a group of people who live in a large building in Oakland, California. At night the men and woman who suffer from the night madness are locked out of the building. The Coven was started by one of the female ancestors of the Blackstone twins. It’s an interesting story world and becomes even more so as the story progresses.

The bulk of the story is because there is a rumor that someone in the past found a cure for the night madness and that this research can be obtained at a place they call White Mountain. Zoe doesn’t want her brother to be afflicted with the night madness and convinces the powers that be to allow a group of those in the coven to travel to White Mountain in search of this cure. Of course this trip of a few hundred miles each way isn’t as simple as it would have been in the HTA. They have no cars, so they need to walk, carrying those supplies they need for food. They need to plan for whatever problems they might encounter along the way including other people who might not be as friendly as them. It makes for quite an adventure. I found myself checking out a map when they would mention specific towns between Oakland and the Sierra Mountains to the east, trying to remember if I’d been to that area and, if so, what it looked like. It was an adventure for the twins and one I enjoyed taking with them.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of proofing misses.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

Reprise Review: Deep Current (Totem Book 6) by Christine Rains

 Genre: Fantasy/Romance/Mystery/Adventure/Mythology

Description:

“Lost to the clutches of her grief of losing her mentor, Saskia Dorn welcomes the opportunity to take down a warehouse of drug dealers. When their leader makes a break for it, Saskia and her ex-boyfriend, Sedge, chase the criminal shifter into the sea off the coast of northwestern Alaska. Not only do they lose their quarry, but a vicious sea hag snatches Sedge.

Saskia can’t take another loss and attempts to bargain for Sedge’s life and the salmon totem the witch has trapped in her cave. The sea hag wants only one thing: her long lost love. Who is dead. And living under the freaking ocean with the Salmon People. Find the Salmon People and return with the witch’s love before Sedge’s life is forfeit. Simple, right? Yet she can’t leave the Salmon People’s land without finding herself first.”

Author:

“Christine Rains is a writer, blogger, and geek mom. She's married to her best friend and fellow geek living in south-central Indiana. They have one son who is too smart for his parents' own good and loves to pretend he's Batman. Christine has four degrees which help nothing with motherhood, but make her a great Jeopardy player. When she's not reading or writing, she's going on adventures with her son or watching cheesy movies on Syfy Channel.

She's a member of Untethered Realms and S.C.I.F.I. (South Central Indiana Fiction Interface). She has several short stories and novellas published. She's had two firsts in 2015. Early in the year, she put out her first urban fantasy novel, Of Blood and Sorrow. She also had a hilarious and steamy series, Dice & Debauchery, published by Ellora's Cave. It's erotic romance for geeks written by a geek.”

For more, check out her Facebook page.

Appraisal:

This novella starts with a raid on a drug lord’s warehouse on the northwestern coast of Alaska. Saskia is a fierce warrior and relishes the fight, taking out her anger on the humans working in the warehouse. When the shifter kingpin shows up Sedge and Saskia give chase across the ocean. Meanwhile, a vicious sea hag with men issues hears Saskia’s thoughts of aggravation with Sedge and snatches him away. Now Saskia is in a race against time to free Sedge from her clutches.

I enjoyed the way Ms. Rains wove the Inuit mythology of the Salmon People into this tale. True to the myths of other Native American stories the themes are circular and the seeker has to find the way according to their own situation. Deep Current is Saskia’s story of facing her own truths. She has to take a long hard look at herself and her own fears about what’s holding her back from Sedge. He’s made it clear he’s not going anywhere, and Saskia has to trust him enough to be honest with him and herself. But first she has to save Sedge from the sea hag who has stolen his bear aspect and he can’t survive without his bear magic in the harsh elements under the icy sea in his human form.

Deep Current is full of action, heart, and soul. It is nice to finally understand what Saskia has dealt with in her past that closed her off. It’s going to be interesting to see if she loses any of her fiery personality. Though I don’t expect this new perspective to affect Saskia’s hardcore fighting spirit to protect the shifter world. However, I do hope to see glimpses of her softer, more accepting side more often now.

If you haven’t started reading the Totem series of novellas, I highly recommend them. Each novella comes to a satisfactory ending, however, the mission to reunite the totem tokens is still incomplete. And as far as I know Totem #7, #8, and #9 release dates are yet to be determined.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Contains adult language with several F-bombs. Deep Current is the sixth book in the Totem series. This series of novellas build on each other and should be read in order.

Original review published April 28, 2017

Format/Typo Issues:

No proofing or formatting issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words

Review: The Motel Cowboy Show by Josh Crutchmer

 Genre: Non-Fiction

Description:

“From the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho, where phone service still may not reach, to the bustle of Austin, centerpiece of the Texas Music Scene, the influence of mountain roots music is real, lasting, and chronicled by Josh Crutchmer. This highly-anticipated sequel to Red Dirt: Roots Music, Born in Oklahoma, Raised in Texas, At Home Anywhere ties mountain originals like Pinto Bennett to cowboy poets like Baxter Black and Chris LeDoux, and follows their trail down every highway and back road they chose. The rise, heyday and pending touring retirement of Reckless Kelly is covered extensively, bouyed by the humor and introspection of Willy and Cody Braun, their musical upbringing and the larger-than-life influence they forged wherever they made music. The book also puts you in the seats at the venerable Red Rocks Amphitheater for the 2022 comeback concerts by the Turnpike Troubadours, supported by Reckless Kelly and Shovels & Rope. You'll also get the complete story of the Braun Brothers Reunion and its lasting impact on the community of Challis, and read about the determination of Micky and the Motorcars to carve their own legacy. The Motel Cowboy Show will inform as much as it entertains, and it will leave readers casting eyes toward the stages and studios of the American West.”

Author:

Currently the print planning editor at the New York Times, Josh Crutchmer has a long history in journalism having worked for several newspapers around the country before landing at the Times. During that time his specialty has often been  music journalism which he still does on the side, reporting at times for various newspapers as well as Rolling Stone magazine. He has one prior book, Red Dirt, a book about music with its roots in Oklahoma. For more, visit his website.

Appraisal:

As with Josh Crutchmer’s last book, Red Dirt, that covered the history and various connections involved in the development of the Red Dirt music scene that originated in Oklahoma and spread from there, this book does the same for some of the music with roots in the mountains of the western US. As with Red Dirt each chapter of the book stands alone. This can feel disjointed if you expect one chapter to flow into the next and sometimes results in something that was covered in one chapter getting repeated in another one when the information is needed as background in both places, but for the most part if you understand the goal was for each chapter to stand alone, it is no big deal.

If you’re a fan of one or more of the musical acts mentioned in the description and want to know more about their history and their influences, reading this is a no-brainer. If you read and enjoyed Red Dirt, same story.

Some chapters are question and answer chapters, what he calls “roundtables,” with multiple musicians. Some are a run down of a festival with a brief summary of those who played, impressions, and how they connect to each other and the overriding theme, with some glimpses behind the scenes. Yet other chapters are what you might expect, a summary of the history of one or more of the musical acts significant in this subgenre and how they connect to others. As a fan of many of the bands and the genre of music covered, I knew some of the history, certainly more of it than I did when I read Red Dirt, but I learned a lot more. One of the festivals that were discussed in a chapter was one I’d attended, and it helped me appreciate the experience more while also reliving it to some degree. Other festivals that I didn’t attend, I got to experience vicariously through the author’s eyes. A fun read that has left me wondering whether Crutchmer has another music scene he’s planning on documenting in his next book.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words

Review: A Scenic Hills Summer by Shannon Yarbrough

 

Genre: Psychological Thriller/Mystery/LGBTQ

Description:

“When the bodies of three male sex workers show up on the banks of the Mississippi River, the St. Louis LGBTQIA community grows restless while searching for a missing bartender. The police have been slow to respond, and a local reporter suspects a serial killer might be stalking the city’s streets.

Unable to resist putting herself in front of a story as it unfolds, Colette Birzhan races to the Midwest to report on the case. She’s intelligent, provocative, and a proud trans woman. She’s also an award-winning investigative journalist for the New York City Tribune.

Having escaped the clutches of a small town years ago to become her true self, Colette yearns to tell the stories of minorities and under-represented people just like her. From seedy strip joints to private upscale men’s clubs, there’s no part of the city where Colette won’t go while tracking the killer.

Colette relies on the unheard, and often ignored, voices of the city to lead her one step closer to solving the case. When she teams up with a rookie hustler, the trail leads them to a quiet suburb outside of St. Louis called Scenic Hills.

Swimming pools, back yard barbecues, children riding bikes along neighborhood streets, Scenic Hills is a place where people go to escape the fast and dangerous pace of city life.

And it’s where a killer could be hiding.”

Author:

“Shannon Yarbrough knew he wanted to be a writer ever since his grade school passed out free black-and-white journals each year and made classrooms devote one hour a day to creative writing. His school even hosted a Young Author’s Day Festival. To attend, each student had to write and publish their very own book. Shannon wrote and created a pop-up book of poetry out of cardboard and contact paper. He’s been writing short stories and novels ever since.

Born in the South, Shannon fell in love with Southern literature in college and often pays homage to his Southern roots in his story settings and in the characters he creates. From an obsessive-compulsive coffee barista searching for love in a romantic comedy to a Christmas dinner gone awry in a family psychodrama, Shannon constantly challenges his storytelling ability by rarely sticking to one genre. He even wrote a mash-up of the life of poet Emily Dickinson with the story of Frankenstein.

Shannon has called St. Louis, Missouri home for the last two decades, where he lives with his partner of eighteen years, their two dogs, and two cats. Besides writing, Shannon enjoys gardening, cooking, and reading.”

For more, visit Shannon’s website.

Appraisal:

Regular readers of my reviews know that one thing I like in fiction is when a story figuratively puts me in someone else’s shoes, helping me better understand and hopefully sympathize with the plight of those different than me. Here we’ve got a bunch of characters who are members of the LGBTQIA community. In some instances, they’re homeless or close to being so and making ends meet as sex workers. (Warning: If you’re homophobic, this book will probably trigger you repeatedly.) These characters make this story different from my typical read, but at its heart this book is a thriller. Wondering whether Collette, the police, or someone else was going to be able to figure out who the serial killer killing male sex workers in St Louis was and if they would be able to stop the killings kept me engaged to the end.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language and mild adult content. As mentioned in the review, if you’re homophobic, this might not be for you either.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Review: The Truth of It by Beth Orsoff

 Genre: Women’s Fiction/Crime Fiction

Description:

“Grace Hughes has finally uncovered the truth behind the tragic deaths of her husband and daughter. But now that she knows the truth, she must act on it. Her conscience demands nothing less.

With the help of an unlikely ally, Grace hatches a plan to insinuate herself into the lives of her family’s killers. Her goal is simple: infiltrate their organization and gather evidence to use against them at trial. But as Grace delves deeper into the criminal world, the danger to herself and her family escalates.

As the clock ticks down, Grace must balance her desire for justice with the need to keep her loved ones safe. With heart-stopping action and emotional twists and turns, The Truth of It will keep readers on the edge of their seat until the last satisfying page.”

Author:

When Beth’s parents told her they didn’t send her to college to be a professional lifeguard, she moved to California and enrolled in USC Law School to become an entertainment lawyer. She also became a regular attendee of the UCLA Extension Writers Program workshops. She lives in Los Angeles with her daughter.

To find out more about Beth visit her website.

Appraisal:

If you’ve read the first two books in this series like I have then this is where we finally resolve a lot of the questions that have been haunting us (and yes, haunting Grace even more) since the beginning. If you haven’t read the first two books, you should before starting this one.

As for the content of the story, I don’t want to say too much specific. I will say that some things happen that don’t surprise me while others definitely do. Grace finds the answers to some of the questions she had and ultimately finds herself in a better place, but things get tense and sometimes what you wish for may not be what you ultimately need.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

While there is a short prolog that will refresh the memory of what is happening in the series for those continuing from the first two books and a reader is likely to pick things up if they start with this book, I’d advise anyone to read the entire trilogy from the beginning.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Reprise Review: Atlas, Broken by Jeremy Tyrrell

 Genre: Literary Fiction

Description:

Henry Ludlow’s existence erodes as modern life takes its toll in the torture of a thousand cuts.

Author:

Jeremy Tyrrell is a software developer by day and writer in his off time. He has worked in a variety of fields; from retail hardware to burger boy, from store maintenance to tutoring, from janitor to programmer.

Appraisal:

Atlas, Broken is told in a powerful voice that reminds at once of Ogden Nash and Franz Kafka. Walter Mitty meets the bug of The Metamorphsis. The fact that it is self-published is condemnation of the current state of letters.

The author himself called Atlas, Broken a depressing tale and some early reviews praised it for dealing with depression. I didn’t see it that way, but rather as a story of Every Man, even the giants among us. Sam Houston, the hero of the Texas revolution and a Unionist who was unable to prevent the state from joining the Confederacy, considered his life a failure. George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak, famously wrote “My work is done, why wait?” before he killed himself.

Tyrrell uses humor expertly, not to take the edge off his stark look at the human condition, but to hone the edge to razor sharpness. Highly recommended.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Original review published April 18, 2017

Format/Typo Issues:

None worth noting

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: Sam Waite

Approximate word count: 20-25,000 words

Review: The Undertaking by Rob Johnson

 Genre: Crime/Comedy

Description:

“If business didn’t pick up soon, we’d be staring into the abyss of what economists might call ‘totally screwed’.”

“But as chance would have it, Max Dempsey and Partners: Funeral Directors are about to be saved from financial ruin by a mysterious stranger with a wad of cash. It was the first time they’d been asked to collect a body from France, but what could possibly go wrong?

For a start, the body in question isn’t at all what they’d been expecting, and all of a sudden Max and his partners find themselves catapulted into a world of espionage, blackmail, kidnapping, double-dealing and Russian assassins.

The name’s Dempsey. Max Dempsey. Shaken, stirred and totally freaked out.

The Undertaking is the second book in the Cremains series of comedy capers.”

Author:

Rob Johnson is a playwright with four plays that have been professionally produced and toured throughout the UK as well as several books.

For more, visit Johnson’s website.

Appraisal:

If you read the first book in this series, you’ll already be familiar with Max and his partners who by the end of that book found themselves working as undertakers and funeral directors at their own company. But things aren’t going so well. As this story begins, they’re approached by a person who gives them a large upfront payment with more to come. All they have to do is pick up a body from an undertaker in France and bring it back to the UK. Should be a piece of cake, right?

It turns out not to be so easy though. From minor issues, like the body won’t fit in the coffin they brought with them, to more significant issues I can’t mention since it would be a spoiler, they find that things aren’t quite what they expected. Just when they think they have things under control and have figured out how to deal with it, something else happens, with the pace of these wild twists coming faster and faster as the story progresses. If you’re a fan of comedy crime novels, this one is worth a read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Uses UK spelling and slang.

This is the second book in a series featuring Max Dempsey and crew. While having read the first book in the series, The Cremains, gives you a more complete understanding of what brought Max and his partners to this point in their lives, it isn’t necessary to read the first book in order to understand and enjoy this current book. It can stand alone.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words