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Take Five
Renée Pawlish, the award-winning author of the Reed Ferguson mystery series, the Dewey Webb historical mystery series, The Girl in the Window, a stand-alone suspense novel, and much more, offers a wonderful collection of five short stories. You will laugh, feel chills, cringe, and most of all, keep turning pages. This collection offers a variety of mysteries, including a Reed Ferguson story. It is an inexpensive way to get introduced to the author and her works. TAKE FIVE Five mystery tales set in Colorado. Sarah Spillman, a sassy Denver police detective. Reed Ferguson, a witty private eye with a love of film noir and Humphrey Bogart. Kay, a computer nerd with revenge on her mind. Each story sells individually for 99 cents, so this bundle at $2.99 is a bargain! Plus, one story is only available in this collection. Scroll up and get your copy now. Praise for Renée Pawlish's mystery THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN IN THE MOVIES Kirkus The promising kickoff to Pawlish's comic mystery series, starring far-from-perfect PI Reed Ferguson. Pawlish earns high marks for plot construction, with twists and turns naturally unfolding as Ferguson, inexperienced but not incapable, feels his way through the case. A good-humored mystery series worth following. Readers' Favorite on this mystery This is one witty, hilarious detective story that will keep the reader glued to the pages until the very end. 5 Star Review There is little doubt that Renée Pawlish is a promising new voice to the comic murder/mystery genre. Quite noticeable...is Pawlish's adept development of the plot coupled with her ability to contrive clear, concise and playful prose with almost perfect pacing. Norman Goldman, Bookpleasures Publisher and Editor Top Amazon Reviewer About the Author Renée Pawlish is the author of the Reed Ferguson mystery series, Nephilim Genesis of Evil, first in the Nephilim trilogy, the Noah Winter adventure series, and she has also written short stories, middle grade novels, and a non-fiction book, The Sallie Exposing the Beast Within, about the investigation of America's most haunted house. Visit www.reneepawlish.com for more information.
- GenresMystery
150 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 9, 2011
20 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Renee Pawlish
114 books347 followersFrom the time she was ten and tried to write her own detective series in the fashion of the Hardy Boys, Renée Pawlish has been developing her craft. Along with creative writing classes, Renée studied great writers like Dashiell Hammett, Rex Stout, Stephen King, Sue Grafton and many more. Once Renée graduated from college, she began her first novel. Now, all these years later, she has penned numerous books in a variety of genres.
Renée was born in California, but has lived most of her life in Colorado. When she's not hiking, cycling, or chasing ballplayers for autographs, she is writing mysteries and thrillers. She also has some middle grade novels waiting to be published.
Renée loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim: Genesis of Evil.
The Reed Ferguson Mystery Series
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
Reel Estate Rip-off
The Nephilim Trilogy
Nephilim Genesis of Evil
Books Two and Three soon to be released
The Noah Winter YA Adventure Series
The Emerald Quest
Take Five
A short story collection that includes a Reed Ferguson tale.
The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within
A non-fiction book about one of the most haunted houses in America.
To learn more you can follow her on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/reneepawlish....
on her blog:
http://tobecomeawriter.wordpress.com/
on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/reneepawlish
Renée was born in California, but has lived most of her life in Colorado. When she's not hiking, cycling, or chasing ballplayers for autographs, she is writing mysteries and thrillers. She also has some middle grade novels waiting to be published.
Renée loves to travel and has visited numerous countries around the world. She has also spent many summer days at her parents' cabin in the hills outside of Boulder, which was the inspiration for the setting of Taylor Crossing in her novel Nephilim: Genesis of Evil.
The Reed Ferguson Mystery Series
This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
Reel Estate Rip-off
The Nephilim Trilogy
Nephilim Genesis of Evil
Books Two and Three soon to be released
The Noah Winter YA Adventure Series
The Emerald Quest
Take Five
A short story collection that includes a Reed Ferguson tale.
The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within
A non-fiction book about one of the most haunted houses in America.
To learn more you can follow her on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/reneepawlish....
on her blog:
http://tobecomeawriter.wordpress.com/
on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/reneepawlish
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 28, 2012
Five short stories:
Seven for Suicide: Detective Sarah Spillman was called out for an apparent suicide. When she saw the party invitation, she knew it wasn't your run-of-the-mill suicide. Seven people came to the party, but they were only supposed to act out their suicide, not actually do it. But was it suicide or did someone use the opportunity to commit murder?
Elvis and the Sports Card Cheat: Reed Ferguson, owner the Reed Ferguson Detective Agency, was sitting at his desk when in walked Elvis, who was actually Perry Rawlings, an Elvis Impersonator. Perry's 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle baseball card had been stolen. It was one of the most collectible post-war baseball cards and worth around ten thousand dollars. After checking into it, I told Perry I didn't think I could help him and returned his check. A week later he called saying the card was back in the safe. He didn't have any idea how it got there. Why would someone steal the card and then put it back?
Saturday Night Special: Another Sarah Spillman story, so you know it's going to be good. Just before she was called out on the fourth death of a prostitute, she talked to Kurt, an old boyfriend that just came to town. She thought he wanted to get together for old-times sake, but he really wanted to get back together. After Sarah returned to work, she received a second "prank" call. She had ignored the first thinking that it was just a prank call. It was the killer and she recognized his voice, just couldn't place it.
Nerds Revenge: Freddie and I did not get along at all. He was the one that got things done, so I knew it would be my job on the line if I complained. He constantly tormented me. I'd had enough. Now it was time to plan my revenge and get rid of him once and for all.
Dance of the Macabre: Sarah Spillman was on a much needed vacation with Harry when they came across a body. Something about it didn't look right.
Renee Pawlish has some of the best endings to her books I have ever read. They are almost always a surprise and totally unexpected. These short stories were suspenseful and easy to read. Great for catching one on your break from work or just sitting around when you only have a sort period of time. Look for more of her work, it will be worth your while.
Take FiveRenee Pawlish
Seven for Suicide: Detective Sarah Spillman was called out for an apparent suicide. When she saw the party invitation, she knew it wasn't your run-of-the-mill suicide. Seven people came to the party, but they were only supposed to act out their suicide, not actually do it. But was it suicide or did someone use the opportunity to commit murder?
Elvis and the Sports Card Cheat: Reed Ferguson, owner the Reed Ferguson Detective Agency, was sitting at his desk when in walked Elvis, who was actually Perry Rawlings, an Elvis Impersonator. Perry's 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle baseball card had been stolen. It was one of the most collectible post-war baseball cards and worth around ten thousand dollars. After checking into it, I told Perry I didn't think I could help him and returned his check. A week later he called saying the card was back in the safe. He didn't have any idea how it got there. Why would someone steal the card and then put it back?
Saturday Night Special: Another Sarah Spillman story, so you know it's going to be good. Just before she was called out on the fourth death of a prostitute, she talked to Kurt, an old boyfriend that just came to town. She thought he wanted to get together for old-times sake, but he really wanted to get back together. After Sarah returned to work, she received a second "prank" call. She had ignored the first thinking that it was just a prank call. It was the killer and she recognized his voice, just couldn't place it.
Nerds Revenge: Freddie and I did not get along at all. He was the one that got things done, so I knew it would be my job on the line if I complained. He constantly tormented me. I'd had enough. Now it was time to plan my revenge and get rid of him once and for all.
Dance of the Macabre: Sarah Spillman was on a much needed vacation with Harry when they came across a body. Something about it didn't look right.
Renee Pawlish has some of the best endings to her books I have ever read. They are almost always a surprise and totally unexpected. These short stories were suspenseful and easy to read. Great for catching one on your break from work or just sitting around when you only have a sort period of time. Look for more of her work, it will be worth your while.
Take FiveRenee Pawlish
Read
October 22, 2011Renée Pawlish, author of the Reed Ferguson mystery series, and Nephilim Genesis of Evil, first in a supernatural thriller trilogy, offers a wonderful collection of five short stories.
You will laugh, feel chills, cringe, and most of all, keep turning pages. This collection offers a variety of mysteries, including a Reed Ferguson story. It is an inexpensive way to get introduced to the author and her works.
TAKE FIVE
Five mystery tales set in Colorado.
Sarah Spillman, a sassy Denver police detective.
Reed Ferguson, a witty private eye with a love of film noir and Humphrey Bogart.
Kay, a computer nerd with revenge on her mind.
You will laugh, feel chills, cringe, and most of all, keep turning pages. This collection offers a variety of mysteries, including a Reed Ferguson story. It is an inexpensive way to get introduced to the author and her works.
TAKE FIVE
Five mystery tales set in Colorado.
Sarah Spillman, a sassy Denver police detective.
Reed Ferguson, a witty private eye with a love of film noir and Humphrey Bogart.
Kay, a computer nerd with revenge on her mind.
June 9, 2012
OVERVIEW
Take Five is a collection of short stories written by Renee Pawlish. They are written in first person perspective and generally deal with a sassy female detective but a computer geek's woes creep in there too.
It's available digitally on Amazon for $2.99.
REASON FOR BOOK CHOICE
If you don't know, I'm a member of Goodreads (please be my friend, I'm a nice polite guy, honest!) and part of a group called Making Connections. Authors can pop their books up for review and will give novels away to those who wish to review them. They usually come with a few strings: you have review them within so many weeks, you need to post your reviews at certain places etc. Oh, you also have to write a review too. That's kind of important.
Anyways, it's interesting and I decided to put my hand up for a couple of books. One of these was Take Five by Renee Pawlish. So I received the book for free (FYI) which has left me with a few confused feelings about the system that I will touch on in the conclusion.
STORY
In this collection of short stories there's a couple of murder mysteries and an office fantasy. Overall they were fine. I felt like the stories were watered down versions of Raymond Chandler and set in a very PG universe. A Matlock for collectors, if you must.
I think three (from memory) of the stories focused on the life of a female detective who seems to be the protagonist in the novels. I think those stories I found the most frustrating as a reader. I felt there was a lot of effort that had gone into them but not into making them enjoyable explorations of the human condition, but to outsmart the reader. So these there's a heavy focus on your traditional 'villain' and then suddenly the plot undergoes a seismic shift and places the blame on another character you may or may not have heard of.
I found it almost jumpy and what happened inconsistent. By the time the third story came along, I was already expecting it to be a random character who I couldn't guess the motivations for. As such, I just gave up trying. I read the story and then said, 'Oh, they did it. OK.'
I think murder mysteries are about the human condition so you need time to build an array of suspicious people. Short stories, they don't necessarily work because you have to get in and out quick. (I believe this about many of the later Sherlock Holmes stories too, FYI).
CHARACTERS
I don't know. For me it was too PG and too empowered. All the stories are written in the first person but they don't feel real. The person speaking didn't seem to have a lot of depth or experience in their field. They kept saying they did, they kept telling me how awesome they were but never showing it. Not showing the reader how they really switched on and thinking things through.
I love Phillip Marlowe, I love hard hitting noir and I would love to be reading a sassy go to cop character who is witty and punches guys out. The main detective, unfortunately, isn't like that. She tells me she is, but I didn't really feel like she could ever have been a cop. In fact everyone is so nice despite the fact that detective asks questions of people who would normally tell her to 'F Off'. There was no pathos for me. I felt like I was watching a detective under glass and that's fine but when you compare it to something like Farewell my Lovely, there's a gulf of a difference.
The computer geek story was what I was really looking forward to. Especially after Lisabeth Salamander hit the literary scene. We don't get enough awesome female computer geeks in generic literature and so I was hanging out for this story really badly. And... Yeah. Again, the characters... Humanity under glass. I understand that they might be real, based on real experiences but I've never worked with these kind of people.
I've worked with vicious people who will take your soul out of your body and eat it for breakfast. The workplace bullying that was mentioned in Nerd's Revenge is so lame. When a workplace colleague is evil, they are evil. They will beat you into the ground. If College Girl is the only insult you have to survive in a workplace, your life is pretty easy. I've seen people get pulled up, shoved in a cubicle and yelled at for over five minutes with every type of profanity under the sun being uttered.
Maybe these scenarios exist but they haven't been my experience in a workplace and because of that, I couldn't connect with them. I wanted more The Wire but I got more Get Smart.
WRITING
This is the best part of the book. It's competently written and the words flow together well. The descriptions are vivid and Renee takes you to interesting places.
The stories are written in a first person perspective and that's fine (it seems to be the trend these days) but it doesn't take advantage of that. It doesn't play with the issues of a limited perspective or bring an immediacy to the situation. The stories don't look at using an unreliable narrator or playing around with prejudices. So, that was a little disappointing. But, the story is told effectively and that's more important than literary tricks.
The only thing I have an issue with is the dialogue and that comes back the characters. The dialogue did not feel real. It felt as if the dialogue had been taken from other novels of the same genre instead of real people doing those jobs. As if a template was speaking and not a real person who had a history, a backstory and their own crap to work through. Is it that way or do people really speak like this? Again, I haven't met them but they might exist. However, if you like murder mysteries and don't mind the way the character speak occasionally, then this will be right up your alley.
COVER
The cover is fine. According to the Credits, it was actually designed by a professional company called Lindsay Breen Covers. I don't have a print book to compare it with so maybe it looks great when printed, but I wouldn't have wanted to pay for the cover because it's not extraordinary. Nor does it fit the Kindle's screen completely.
I think if you're going to offer your book on several different e-readers then you'll need to have several different digital covers made up. Or at least get the company to hand over the digital file of your cover so you can adjust it. I know the non-screen filling cover seems to be the standard but that would be the same as a game not pushing it's graphics out to the width of the screen. It's tolerable for a one person show, it's not acceptable when a professional company does it.
The cover itself is fine. I didn't find it engaging or informative about the story, it was just a generic cityscape but the text used was an excellent choice and the positioning of the writing was professionally done. I also enjoyed the purple colour scheme used but that didn't translate at all to the grey scale of the Kindle.
BOOK LAYOUT
So, this story is published by Llama Press. As such I found it odd that they didn't have a TOC in the Kindle version. Again, it might be acceptable for a one person show but for a professional company...Not at all.
It's probably even more inexcusable as this is a short story collection and you don't want to have to flick through the novel to find the short story you want. Especially frustrating is the deactivation of the arrow keys down the bottom that (if you have correctly created chapter headings) will let you flick from one chapter to another. Convenience for the sake of the reader is always great.
Otherwise I really liked the layout, it starts with the credits page, moves to the acknowledgments (thank you, I love reading these), and then gets into the book. It felt like I was reading a novel and that put me in the right mood.
At the end of the novel there's a few promotional quotes about Renee's other novels that you can conveniently buy (with the click of a button!) and I found them really nicely done. I even thought about trying out one of Renee's longer form stories because the reviews were so positive. The reviews were to the point and the author biography was well written.
Overall, I liked it and found the book layout didn't get between me and the story.
CONCLUSION
Take Five sells for $2.99 on Amazon. Is it worth it? I don't know. I think if you're a mystery fan and enjoy the tropes of the genre, there's something here for you. For me, probably not. The stories are too simple, the characters are too generic and the writing is competent. I really wanted to be sucked in and I wasn't at any point. I didn't care about the main characters and in the nerd's case I thought she was being overly precious about the challenges she faced at the workplace.
I feel it's a 3 star book and am only reconsidering not rating it that way because I got sent this book for free. As such I've decided that I'm going to stop doing that. I feel bad about giving 3 stars to a promo book because as an author I know the work that goes into the novel and how your hopes and dreams are tied up in each book's potential success. I want to give it four stars because I want to help Renee Pawlish with her success, but... it's only worth three from a reader's perspective.
----
Discover more exciting (and sometimes infuriating) writing on my blog:
http://rationaleonadetour.blogspot.co...
Take Five is a collection of short stories written by Renee Pawlish. They are written in first person perspective and generally deal with a sassy female detective but a computer geek's woes creep in there too.
It's available digitally on Amazon for $2.99.
REASON FOR BOOK CHOICE
If you don't know, I'm a member of Goodreads (please be my friend, I'm a nice polite guy, honest!) and part of a group called Making Connections. Authors can pop their books up for review and will give novels away to those who wish to review them. They usually come with a few strings: you have review them within so many weeks, you need to post your reviews at certain places etc. Oh, you also have to write a review too. That's kind of important.
Anyways, it's interesting and I decided to put my hand up for a couple of books. One of these was Take Five by Renee Pawlish. So I received the book for free (FYI) which has left me with a few confused feelings about the system that I will touch on in the conclusion.
STORY
In this collection of short stories there's a couple of murder mysteries and an office fantasy. Overall they were fine. I felt like the stories were watered down versions of Raymond Chandler and set in a very PG universe. A Matlock for collectors, if you must.
I think three (from memory) of the stories focused on the life of a female detective who seems to be the protagonist in the novels. I think those stories I found the most frustrating as a reader. I felt there was a lot of effort that had gone into them but not into making them enjoyable explorations of the human condition, but to outsmart the reader. So these there's a heavy focus on your traditional 'villain' and then suddenly the plot undergoes a seismic shift and places the blame on another character you may or may not have heard of.
I found it almost jumpy and what happened inconsistent. By the time the third story came along, I was already expecting it to be a random character who I couldn't guess the motivations for. As such, I just gave up trying. I read the story and then said, 'Oh, they did it. OK.'
I think murder mysteries are about the human condition so you need time to build an array of suspicious people. Short stories, they don't necessarily work because you have to get in and out quick. (I believe this about many of the later Sherlock Holmes stories too, FYI).
CHARACTERS
I don't know. For me it was too PG and too empowered. All the stories are written in the first person but they don't feel real. The person speaking didn't seem to have a lot of depth or experience in their field. They kept saying they did, they kept telling me how awesome they were but never showing it. Not showing the reader how they really switched on and thinking things through.
I love Phillip Marlowe, I love hard hitting noir and I would love to be reading a sassy go to cop character who is witty and punches guys out. The main detective, unfortunately, isn't like that. She tells me she is, but I didn't really feel like she could ever have been a cop. In fact everyone is so nice despite the fact that detective asks questions of people who would normally tell her to 'F Off'. There was no pathos for me. I felt like I was watching a detective under glass and that's fine but when you compare it to something like Farewell my Lovely, there's a gulf of a difference.
The computer geek story was what I was really looking forward to. Especially after Lisabeth Salamander hit the literary scene. We don't get enough awesome female computer geeks in generic literature and so I was hanging out for this story really badly. And... Yeah. Again, the characters... Humanity under glass. I understand that they might be real, based on real experiences but I've never worked with these kind of people.
I've worked with vicious people who will take your soul out of your body and eat it for breakfast. The workplace bullying that was mentioned in Nerd's Revenge is so lame. When a workplace colleague is evil, they are evil. They will beat you into the ground. If College Girl is the only insult you have to survive in a workplace, your life is pretty easy. I've seen people get pulled up, shoved in a cubicle and yelled at for over five minutes with every type of profanity under the sun being uttered.
Maybe these scenarios exist but they haven't been my experience in a workplace and because of that, I couldn't connect with them. I wanted more The Wire but I got more Get Smart.
WRITING
This is the best part of the book. It's competently written and the words flow together well. The descriptions are vivid and Renee takes you to interesting places.
The stories are written in a first person perspective and that's fine (it seems to be the trend these days) but it doesn't take advantage of that. It doesn't play with the issues of a limited perspective or bring an immediacy to the situation. The stories don't look at using an unreliable narrator or playing around with prejudices. So, that was a little disappointing. But, the story is told effectively and that's more important than literary tricks.
The only thing I have an issue with is the dialogue and that comes back the characters. The dialogue did not feel real. It felt as if the dialogue had been taken from other novels of the same genre instead of real people doing those jobs. As if a template was speaking and not a real person who had a history, a backstory and their own crap to work through. Is it that way or do people really speak like this? Again, I haven't met them but they might exist. However, if you like murder mysteries and don't mind the way the character speak occasionally, then this will be right up your alley.
COVER
The cover is fine. According to the Credits, it was actually designed by a professional company called Lindsay Breen Covers. I don't have a print book to compare it with so maybe it looks great when printed, but I wouldn't have wanted to pay for the cover because it's not extraordinary. Nor does it fit the Kindle's screen completely.
I think if you're going to offer your book on several different e-readers then you'll need to have several different digital covers made up. Or at least get the company to hand over the digital file of your cover so you can adjust it. I know the non-screen filling cover seems to be the standard but that would be the same as a game not pushing it's graphics out to the width of the screen. It's tolerable for a one person show, it's not acceptable when a professional company does it.
The cover itself is fine. I didn't find it engaging or informative about the story, it was just a generic cityscape but the text used was an excellent choice and the positioning of the writing was professionally done. I also enjoyed the purple colour scheme used but that didn't translate at all to the grey scale of the Kindle.
BOOK LAYOUT
So, this story is published by Llama Press. As such I found it odd that they didn't have a TOC in the Kindle version. Again, it might be acceptable for a one person show but for a professional company...Not at all.
It's probably even more inexcusable as this is a short story collection and you don't want to have to flick through the novel to find the short story you want. Especially frustrating is the deactivation of the arrow keys down the bottom that (if you have correctly created chapter headings) will let you flick from one chapter to another. Convenience for the sake of the reader is always great.
Otherwise I really liked the layout, it starts with the credits page, moves to the acknowledgments (thank you, I love reading these), and then gets into the book. It felt like I was reading a novel and that put me in the right mood.
At the end of the novel there's a few promotional quotes about Renee's other novels that you can conveniently buy (with the click of a button!) and I found them really nicely done. I even thought about trying out one of Renee's longer form stories because the reviews were so positive. The reviews were to the point and the author biography was well written.
Overall, I liked it and found the book layout didn't get between me and the story.
CONCLUSION
Take Five sells for $2.99 on Amazon. Is it worth it? I don't know. I think if you're a mystery fan and enjoy the tropes of the genre, there's something here for you. For me, probably not. The stories are too simple, the characters are too generic and the writing is competent. I really wanted to be sucked in and I wasn't at any point. I didn't care about the main characters and in the nerd's case I thought she was being overly precious about the challenges she faced at the workplace.
I feel it's a 3 star book and am only reconsidering not rating it that way because I got sent this book for free. As such I've decided that I'm going to stop doing that. I feel bad about giving 3 stars to a promo book because as an author I know the work that goes into the novel and how your hopes and dreams are tied up in each book's potential success. I want to give it four stars because I want to help Renee Pawlish with her success, but... it's only worth three from a reader's perspective.
----
Discover more exciting (and sometimes infuriating) writing on my blog:
http://rationaleonadetour.blogspot.co...
May 3, 2020
Five short stories - one great, one pretty good, three decent.
June 27, 2020
Enjoyed reading
October 29, 2012
This is a collection of five short stories by Renee Pawlish that I have had on my kindle for a good while now. I am not sure but it may have been a freebie so I am loathe to give a negative review but I have to be totally honest about how I feel about it.
On a positive note this book is well presented and well edited which you can't always say about other books on the indie market. However I found these small crime stories lacked something vitally important, maybe something extra that could get me on the edge of my seat.A hook or a clever plot twist or two? The stories are average at best and my main problem was just that.A couple of the stories had disappointing endings ( including one 'It was all a dream' ending) that made me feel short changed. At least one of the stories had a bit of action in it which I thought was handled well and I do think the last story in the collection hints that Renee Pawlish may be be more suited to writing with a little bit of humour. I really liked the idea of a grown up man dancing in his living room with a mannequin!
Sorry Renee, trying to be honest but positive.
On a positive note this book is well presented and well edited which you can't always say about other books on the indie market. However I found these small crime stories lacked something vitally important, maybe something extra that could get me on the edge of my seat.A hook or a clever plot twist or two? The stories are average at best and my main problem was just that.A couple of the stories had disappointing endings ( including one 'It was all a dream' ending) that made me feel short changed. At least one of the stories had a bit of action in it which I thought was handled well and I do think the last story in the collection hints that Renee Pawlish may be be more suited to writing with a little bit of humour. I really liked the idea of a grown up man dancing in his living room with a mannequin!
Sorry Renee, trying to be honest but positive.
September 18, 2015
OK, I don't care for short stories. That said, Sarah Spillman has been in so many Reed Ferguson books that it was nice to see her fleshed out in these 3 short stories. Now it's time that she gets her own full length book, maybe with Reed Ferguson guesting? The writing, as always was good. Renee Pawlish does such a good job with character development I knew I had to read these short stories when I heard about them. I was not disappointed, just left wanting that full length book I've already mentioned.
Elvis & the Sports Card Cheat. A quick short story mystery read. Pawlish's continues to develop her lead character, Reed Ferguson. This time she takes on the world of sports cards, educating & entertaining us.
The Reed Ferguson mystery series:
• Book 1: This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
• Book 2: Reel Estate Rip-off
• Book 3: The Maltese Felon
• Book 4: Farewell, My Deuce
• Book 5: Out Of The Past
• Book 6: Torch Scene
• Book 7: The Lady Who Sang High
• Book 8: Sweet Smell Of Sucrets
• Book 9: The Third Fan
Nerd's Revenge. Another short story look demonstrating Pawlish's vesatility in character development.
Elvis & the Sports Card Cheat. A quick short story mystery read. Pawlish's continues to develop her lead character, Reed Ferguson. This time she takes on the world of sports cards, educating & entertaining us.
The Reed Ferguson mystery series:
• Book 1: This Doesn't Happen In The Movies
• Book 2: Reel Estate Rip-off
• Book 3: The Maltese Felon
• Book 4: Farewell, My Deuce
• Book 5: Out Of The Past
• Book 6: Torch Scene
• Book 7: The Lady Who Sang High
• Book 8: Sweet Smell Of Sucrets
• Book 9: The Third Fan
Nerd's Revenge. Another short story look demonstrating Pawlish's vesatility in character development.
June 9, 2012
When I finished reading this book, I thought, this collection of mystery tales can be easily turned into a tv show. Sarah Spillman is a detective. She has the leading role in three out of five stories. Wherever she goes, crime is after her. New cases are always there, even when she goes on vacation. Reed Ferguson is a private investigator who has a case of a stolen valuable baseball card. Kay has a colleague who always finds a way to disrespect her. Three great characters, five great stories. All of them are well written, making you think who dunnit. Just one of the stories seemed unfinished to me. Some of the supporting characters are funny, some weird, but that is just making the story very entertaining. It's a quick read, very enjoyable. I'm giving four stars just because I wanted the stories to be a little bit longer, to enjoy more reading them.
June 6, 2012
Let me tell you more, as the title implies there are five short mystery stories. While reading follow 3 stories with Sarah Spillman a homicide detective at the Denver Police Department that wherever she goes her job is following her step by step not even halting in her vacation time. Also you will find a Reed Ferguson story where his detective skills lead him this time to catch a thief.
The stories are written well and the mystery is maintained. Sometimes the ending is clear, while in other stories it is left open, which didn't suit me. Maybe it was the context of the story that I didn't understand so the open end remained for me an unsolved mystery.
The stories are written well and the mystery is maintained. Sometimes the ending is clear, while in other stories it is left open, which didn't suit me. Maybe it was the context of the story that I didn't understand so the open end remained for me an unsolved mystery.
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