Third Ring: A Nicholas Tartaglia Thriller

Nicholas Tartaglia #2

by Phillip Tomasso III

Private Investigator, Nicholas Tartaglia, is back . . . Two men burglarize the home of the city's most prominent CEO, searching for a mystical book. What they don't know is that someone is home when they break in. In the flux of chaos, one of the burglars is dead . . . and so is the CEO's only son. When Tartaglia receives a call from an old friend, he learns that she has just been assigned to represent the man accused of the burglary and murder. With time being of the essence, the defense attorney needs Tartaglia's help investigating the circumstances in order to establish a defense. In a desperate search for answers, Tartaglia finds himself submerged in a raging river of deception, evil spells, and witchcraft. It quickly becomes apparent that getting a man out of jail might be the least of Tartaglia's concerns as he uncovers an underworld consumed by the use of black magic . . . and a plot that scares the HELL out of him.

325 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Phillip Tomasso III is the award-winning author of many novels, including Before the Sun Sets and Amazon Best Selling memoir, Nothing Good Happens After Midnight.

He lives in Rochester, NY with his 3 kids, works full-time as a Fire Dispatcher for 9-1-1, and is always hard at work on his next story!

Reviews

[Matt Daly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd Nicholas Tartaglia novel by Tomasso. In this novel, the PI is investigating a mysterious book as he tries to gather information to help build a defense for man on the stand for burglary and murder. What he finds is the existence of an underworld of witchcraft.

Overall, this book had good potential and included some parts of good suspense. I really enjoyed how the author tied in some subplots from the first Tartaglia novel, i.e., the previous relationship with Karis' daughter as well as with the Father and Tenth House. It was also nice how he trickled in some historical locations in Rochester, being born and raised, I had to smile. The novel, however, fell short on several levels. For one, the book is filled with grammatical, punctual, and even chronological errors. The most frustrating was during the ending scene. The Sub-title of Chapter 61 says "11:00 pm", however the third paragraph down on Chapter 62 claims it is merely 8:00 pm. I wouldn't have cared as much, however, time was of the essence and it really put a damper on the suspense.

[Brenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read another novel of Phillip Tomasso and really enjoyed it. Mr. Tomasso set several of his novels in Rochester, NY, my hometown, which is why I picked up Third Ring. I was extremely disappointed with it. The story line and characters were not the problem, but about 1/2 through the book, the spelling errors(the was spelled TEH multiple times) and wrong word usage(ie.their, they're, there)were too frequent. the first one or two I can usually ignore, but this was to the point of me actually getting frustrated.

Tomasso does have a good hold on how to tell a story, but the proofreading of the story made it a difficult read for me since I tend to inhale word for word of each book I read rather than speed read or skim. If a newer edition of this book came out with corrections, I may give it a try again. This is because I do like other works that the author has written that do not have the same issues.