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Wes Darling Mystery #2
Dog River Blues
Don't risk your life for a family reunion.Wherever Wes Darling goes, bad luck seems to follow. Meeting his estranged family is no exception, especially after he agrees to recover a stolen family heirloom. Wes is soon scrambling for his life when a shady character named Fish, an ex-CIA agent looking for an easy score, and a bayou filled with hungry gators all seem determined to stop him. It’s enough to make him wish he’d stayed at home.Sailing the Bayou has never been so thrilling. If you enjoy fast-moving mysteries and suspense, you’ll love Dog River Blues.Grab your copy now!
251 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 11, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
November 27, 2021
Wonderful characters and great plot. Very enjoyable read.
November 30, 2019
The story is good but the so called hero, Wes Darling is one inept bumbling idiot. I found myself more pissed at him than I did the so called bad guys. For this reason I will probably not read any more of these books. Hey I don’t expect the main characters to blow thru the bad guys, but I do expect them to have the common sense to outwit the bad guy at least once during the course of the story. I could go on and on but if I did I would probably take away the 2 stars I allowed. Sorry but done with this , and to think I bought all the books ahead of time DUH. I am sure anyone else reading this Wes Darling set will immediately know what I am saying , Good Riddance
May 16, 2017
This yarn is the second in the Wes Darling series. Wes is a former PI who lives on a boat and gets involved with messes and damsels in distress.
In this tale, he heads to Alabama to reconnect with family and has varied adventures in boats and the swampy world of the Gulf Coast.
The writing is clear. The action never stops and I am ready for the next book in this series whenever it gets published. Top notch book. It entertains
In this tale, he heads to Alabama to reconnect with family and has varied adventures in boats and the swampy world of the Gulf Coast.
The writing is clear. The action never stops and I am ready for the next book in this series whenever it gets published. Top notch book. It entertains
October 1, 2026
A fun romp through the swamp! I enjoy the sailing aspects also! I have sailed that route from Apalachicola to Fort Meyers just not with the Brazilian bikini babe! I am looking forward to reading #3 in the series!
August 4, 2017
Good book
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
April 5, 2019
Realistic Question
The hero has too many close calls with death to be believable. Good story and good character casting, but borders on the edge of fantasy.
The hero has too many close calls with death to be believable. Good story and good character casting, but borders on the edge of fantasy.
April 9, 2021
Action
Great read characters are interesting as well as the story, glad I stumbled across this author, definitely recommend this series
Great read characters are interesting as well as the story, glad I stumbled across this author, definitely recommend this series
May 2, 2021
Love these anti-hero tales
Great read that kept me up at night. Ole We'd is a great character and worth the follow.I will see Y'all at the next adventure.
Great read that kept me up at night. Ole We'd is a great character and worth the follow.I will see Y'all at the next adventure.
March 13, 2017
I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to Key Lime Blues. Wes is again in trouble and getting beaten up repeatedly. He's also got the ladies after him too. I like reading about his experiences taking his boat to different locales. The author is great about describing the areas so that you feel like you can almost see them. Wes also meets plenty of colorful characters while he is in Mobile. There is only a mention of the phobic psychic Elvis but I look forward to reading more about him in future books.
March 12, 2014
I'm a little ambivalent about this book. I'm hovering between saying I liked it and that it was just okay. I won't give it 2 stars because it wasn't totally rife with errors (there were only a few) and it also didn't anger me the way some books do when the writer falls too short. But there just wasn't a lot of meat to the story.
Wes Darling, the protagonist, is an ex-PI, so I expected him to use some of those skills to actually investigate the theft of his grandfather's ill-gotten WWII booty, or at least to find his family (that he never knew existed and whose names he didn't even know) to begin with when he arrives in Mobile. But no. He pulls up to the dock and right off the bat, his family members have sought him out. Way too convenient that his mother made a call-ahead unbeknownst to him. Wes also seems like a bumbling novice rather than a seasoned PI when he is constantly gotten the better of and having his ass beat to within an inch of his life. Not to mention, And he made quite a few other mistakes and made choices and left questions unanswered that I thought were not in character with someone in his field, despite the fact that he didn't really want to take on the task and was ambivalent about learning more about his new-found family. Some of these mistakes were as simple as not being aware of his surroundings. Come on. And when you have a chance to get out of the line of sight of potential bad guys (), you take it, right? Not Wes. He's always too darn tired and wore out to even make a good run for it...what a wuss.
I don't want my protagonist to be perfect. After all, a good character arc should be present so we can see some growth, but don't tell me my hero is an ex-PI, then make the other secondary characters smarter than him. LOL. He also seemed to be attractive to the women of the world, but I wasn't quite sure why. The dude was a narcoleptic punching bag with no common sense. Just sayin'.
The author could have done a lot more with this story.
Wes Darling, the protagonist, is an ex-PI, so I expected him to use some of those skills to actually investigate the theft of his grandfather's ill-gotten WWII booty, or at least to find his family (that he never knew existed and whose names he didn't even know) to begin with when he arrives in Mobile. But no. He pulls up to the dock and right off the bat, his family members have sought him out. Way too convenient that his mother made a call-ahead unbeknownst to him. Wes also seems like a bumbling novice rather than a seasoned PI when he is constantly gotten the better of and having his ass beat to within an inch of his life. Not to mention, And he made quite a few other mistakes and made choices and left questions unanswered that I thought were not in character with someone in his field, despite the fact that he didn't really want to take on the task and was ambivalent about learning more about his new-found family. Some of these mistakes were as simple as not being aware of his surroundings. Come on. And when you have a chance to get out of the line of sight of potential bad guys (), you take it, right? Not Wes. He's always too darn tired and wore out to even make a good run for it...what a wuss.
I don't want my protagonist to be perfect. After all, a good character arc should be present so we can see some growth, but don't tell me my hero is an ex-PI, then make the other secondary characters smarter than him. LOL. He also seemed to be attractive to the women of the world, but I wasn't quite sure why. The dude was a narcoleptic punching bag with no common sense. Just sayin'.
The author could have done a lot more with this story.
February 28, 2017
Very good!
Wes Darling manages to find himself plenty of trouble doing investigations and getting beat up reminiscent of Sam Spade. Very good reading, suspenseful and mysterious.
Wes Darling manages to find himself plenty of trouble doing investigations and getting beat up reminiscent of Sam Spade. Very good reading, suspenseful and mysterious.
August 17, 2011
Suspense set on the water and family secrets explored by an excellent writer with a sure hand on the tiller
Because I'm familiar with Mike Jastrzebski's writing and his blog WriteOnTheWater.com, I downloaded Dog River Blues--the new Wes Darling Mystery--fully expecting a nonstop adventure. I also looked forward to the general backdrop of sailing off the Florida--or, in this case, Alabama--coast and an engaging hero and his live-aboard, Rough Draft.
What I didn't expect, though, was the beauty of the language, the way Jastrzebski took me to the Mobile marina ("as the anchor chain was dragged up from the water it made a loud rattling sound that reminded me of an angry castle ghost in a B movie") or a parking lot ("buried in a misty cocoon...cars moved in and out of focus like spectral derelicts in an ocean of opaque fleece") or a, perhaps, abandoned motel room ("soft light cast a glow on the shaded window like Tinkerbell searching for the lost boys").
I loved this book--not just for where it took me, but for where it made me afraid of going. Happily, Wes Darling--as he, albeit unwillingly, explores the secrets his estranged family has kept long-hidden--is made of sterner stuff.
You will love this book: Five stars!
Because I'm familiar with Mike Jastrzebski's writing and his blog WriteOnTheWater.com, I downloaded Dog River Blues--the new Wes Darling Mystery--fully expecting a nonstop adventure. I also looked forward to the general backdrop of sailing off the Florida--or, in this case, Alabama--coast and an engaging hero and his live-aboard, Rough Draft.
What I didn't expect, though, was the beauty of the language, the way Jastrzebski took me to the Mobile marina ("as the anchor chain was dragged up from the water it made a loud rattling sound that reminded me of an angry castle ghost in a B movie") or a parking lot ("buried in a misty cocoon...cars moved in and out of focus like spectral derelicts in an ocean of opaque fleece") or a, perhaps, abandoned motel room ("soft light cast a glow on the shaded window like Tinkerbell searching for the lost boys").
I loved this book--not just for where it took me, but for where it made me afraid of going. Happily, Wes Darling--as he, albeit unwillingly, explores the secrets his estranged family has kept long-hidden--is made of sterner stuff.
You will love this book: Five stars!
June 28, 2014
Started this within an hour of finishing the first book in the series, and finished it the same day. I was disappointed that Wes Darling left Key West and the story has a few flaws. Too much happens to him too fast upon arriving in Mobile, and for a PI he's too free with too much information which is what gets him in trouble but which none of the other affected characters call him out on. But it's a fun, easy read which is exactly what I wanted on the last day of my coastal vacation. And I can't give fewer than 4 stars to a book that includes this truth: "Sometimes you've just got to go with the mystical teachings of the Parrothead philosophy. After all, it really is five o'clock somewhere."
I'm picking up sort of a treasure-hunting vibe in this series, and hope there are more Wes Darling mysteries yet to come!
I'm picking up sort of a treasure-hunting vibe in this series, and hope there are more Wes Darling mysteries yet to come!
Did Not Finish
April 28, 2015The plot was so incredibly weak that I couldn't continue. The author has the main character, a thirty something PI who's apparently no longer working for his family's detective agency, sailing to Mobile to find his father's family. All his mother, also a PI, will finally tell him is that he was a Vietnam vet she had a wild weekend with in Mexico. No name, etc. She finally admits he was from Mobile. Wes is in Mobile "asking about his family" according to the storyline. Really? All he knows he was a Vietnam vet and came from Mobile. Ol' Wes expects to find him with that? Then a "cousin" appears and says she heard he was asking about family. HUH??? That's when I closed the book and gave up.
A plot and character that weak aren't worth my time.
A plot and character that weak aren't worth my time.
August 23, 2011
I've been anxiously awaiting the second book in the Wes Darling series and it was worth the wait. While I was initially saddened to see Wes point his sailboat away from Key West the setting on the Dog River in Mobile was refreshingly new to me and I enjoyed learning about it.
Of course any mystery novel is enhanced by a good story and interesting characters and this book has both, in addition to a number of different tidbits about the live aboard boating life which is so captivating to those of us who are land locked.
I've enjoyed each of the three books by Mike Jastrzebski and look forward to seeing more.
Of course any mystery novel is enhanced by a good story and interesting characters and this book has both, in addition to a number of different tidbits about the live aboard boating life which is so captivating to those of us who are land locked.
I've enjoyed each of the three books by Mike Jastrzebski and look forward to seeing more.
October 26, 2011
Sorry, but just trite reading to me. Read Jaztrzebski's other two books, too. First one (Key Lime Blues) was pretty good; second one, not quite so good, then this one, a real disappointment. Kind of formula written. Hope MJ takes more time with his next book so that it's at least par with his first book. Couldn't wait to finish so I could write a legitimate review, pick up a better written book and spend my time being able to concentrate on what I was reading. Two stars only because it was ok. Couldn't say I didn't like it, just not much to challenge the reader or make the reader think and/or enjoy the book.
January 10, 2014
Perhaps this really deserves 3 stars, but it wasn't really a mystery as I had expected, so I was disappointed. This is much more of a thriller-suspense book, as the villains are identified about a third of the way into the book. It did have some good twists, but the basic premise seemed a bit flawed.
September 19, 2012
This is the first story I've read featuring Wes darling. He's a great character- very likable and believable -and I had no trouble jumping right into this story. He's a nice guy who tries to do the right thing and finds himself getting beat up quite often. Actually reminds me a little of Jim Rockford from the old "Rockford Files" tv show;-) I will be reading more of this fun series by Mike Jastrzebski. I received a free copy of this book for review. I will happily pay full price for the rest of the series.
February 22, 2013
I was almost finished with Dog River Blues before I realized there had been a previous book. In other words, this can be read as a stand-alone novel without affecting the enjoyment (although I will be seeking out the first book). Wes Darling serves as a reluctant detective to help his newly-found family. The plot is fairly simple, but moves well. I enjoyed the setting and the "locals" who added humor. Mike Jastrzebski has a very readable writing style. I hope he has more adventures in mind for Wes and his boat. I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
August 17, 2013
If you like your PI a bit clueless, this is your guy. Not to worry--he fortunately never comes up against anyone very clever. It was difficult to care much about his romantic involvement with either woman, or about the quest. The thief and his henchman were dumb as bricks. Darling spends a lot of time feeling tired and "blue." Small wonder; I felt the same. A book like this is frustrating because the author is obviously talented. There's simply nothing to really sink your teeth into, nothing to haunt you, nothing to make you think. He could have done so much more with this...
September 22, 2013
This was a pretty quick read and overall was pretty interesting. The storyline was decent. Wes Darling tries to find out about his family history and helps his newly discovered family with a problem. The characters were fun and interesting. The only thing that kept it from getting a higher rating from me was the ending was choppy. At first I thought the ending was too brief and it would never be "resolved". Then I felt like it dragged out and would never end. It finally did wrap up and I could live with it. I'll probably continue the series.
July 17, 2013
EX Private Detective who never knew his father sails his boat to Mobile bay find out about his father and his family. He is approached by a young girl claiming to be a cousin who talks him into helping her find an old book that was stolen from her family. A couple of not so bright protagonists, more family members appear and our PI somehow muddles through despite getting banged around quite a bit.
November 16, 2011
Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads - YAY!
This was enjoyable. I would recommend it as an easy read when you don't want anything too deep. I would read something else by this author. This book just seemed to tie up too easily and some situations seemed contrary to others, regarding the plot. The writing style was good.
This was enjoyable. I would recommend it as an easy read when you don't want anything too deep. I would read something else by this author. This book just seemed to tie up too easily and some situations seemed contrary to others, regarding the plot. The writing style was good.
September 3, 2015
Attention holder
Wow ! Like the first Wes Darling book, this one grabbed my attention and never let go ! Just love these colorful characters. Again once I started reading, I couldn't stop until it was finished. Waiting for number three in the series. Always wanted to sail, more inclined to do it after reading this book. Really like this non-PI adventures.
Wow ! Like the first Wes Darling book, this one grabbed my attention and never let go ! Just love these colorful characters. Again once I started reading, I couldn't stop until it was finished. Waiting for number three in the series. Always wanted to sail, more inclined to do it after reading this book. Really like this non-PI adventures.
September 20, 2011
Nice easy read. A little strange at times, like, what's up with the kissing cousin thing, but I enjoyed the book.
Nothing complex or deep about this book, great for when you want a light book. Worth reading.
Nothing complex or deep about this book, great for when you want a light book. Worth reading.
February 15, 2012
This book moved along at a good pace without dull passages.
My problem is that the lead character seemed to do things somewhat beyond belief thus ruining some of the believability of the book. This caused the 3 star rating rather than a higher one.
My problem is that the lead character seemed to do things somewhat beyond belief thus ruining some of the believability of the book. This caused the 3 star rating rather than a higher one.
July 18, 2013
It's like reading a Travis McGee book... only Wes Darling has a sailboat instead of a houseboat. This time Darling is in Mobile, AL meeting family he never knew he had until a week ago. And this family wants a certain book back.
January 11, 2014
,Another enjoyable Wes Darling story
like key lime blues, the storyline was simple but entertaining. the characters were likable....except for the bad guys. it had sex, intrigue, and expected twist. if you liked the first took of the series you will like this one.
like key lime blues, the storyline was simple but entertaining. the characters were likable....except for the bad guys. it had sex, intrigue, and expected twist. if you liked the first took of the series you will like this one.
August 4, 2014
Accidentally lost my page partway in and didn't care enough to spend time or energy finding it to continue. Too much stupidity, like sharing detailed information with someone he just met and knows nothing about.
May 13, 2015
You know how private detectives always seem to be super sleuths and strong and invincible?? Well, this sleuth is anything but...and yet, he is reigning champ! Great story with lots of "oh no" moments. Good read!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews