One Against Many

Deklan Falls #1

by Bryan W. Alaspa

Deklan Falls is a broken man in a corrupt city. Once he was a cop in Oldtowne, a small city in eastern Ohio that most people don’t know about, and those who live there wish they could forget. Then he became a corrupt cop. Then he became a crusader private eye, and then, when his world blew apart, he crawled into a bottle to die. Then, one day, a filmmaker walks into his office because Deklan can be bought cheap. The documentary filmmaker wants to find the star of a famous adult film from the late 70s who vanished. The film was financed by the mob, made in Oldtowne, and is one of the biggest mysteries in the adult film industry. If Deklan can find out what happened to Faline Forest, star of the world-famous film The Cheerleader, he’ll get a million dollars. That’s enough to get cleaned up, but it means possibly facing off against the mob that rules Oldtowne. He’s been warned twice about that. But maybe, just maybe, if he can figure out what happened to Faline, he can redeem himself and maybe, just maybe, he can fix Oldtowne, too.

One broken man in a corrupt city. One very cold missing persons case. One shot at redemption.

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 7, 2012

About the author

I was born in the fine year of 1971 in Park Ridge, IL. I am a life long Chicago resident and I love the city. I spent a few years in St. Louis, as well. I knew I wanted to write from the time I sat down at my mom's electric typewriter in the 3rd grade. Now I do write. I write freelance and articles for online news sources. I write horror, thrillers and detective novels. I also write non-fiction in true crime and history genres. I publish my fiction myself as an indie publisher and write and have found an audience for my work among ebook fans. I publish for Kindle, Nook and other tablets and devices at Smashwords.com. My non-fiction is usually published in print, but that may soon change as ebooks become more and more of the norm.

Reviews

[Nigel · Rating 2 out of 5]

** Minor Spoilers **

This was an average novel, which presents the reader with what is best described as a formulaic private investigator novel. Deklan Falls is a novelist’s archetypal PI, former police officer dishonourably dismissed from the force that becomes a borderline alcoholic and is then given that one big case with a large payday that enables him to fight is inner demons and become a better person for it. Having said that it was an easy read and kept the tension in the story well so you wanted to keep reading to see how it ended.
As well as being formulaic there were a couple of other major downsides from my point of view:
a) Given the amount of alcohol that Falls consumes during the novel, especially in the first half, it would be a miracle if he could stand up let alone drive, hold serious conversations and be able to think straight enough to investigate anything. I know the drive to reform the alcoholic PI is one of the character strands of the novel, but I think the author over does it.
b) The climax of the story stretches artistic suspension of realty to the limit with both the district attorney and the FBI conspire with Falls and allow him to carry out a full scale bloody attack on Oldtown’s ruling mob family not only without any legal repercussions but actually providing him with the tools to do so. I just cannot see this can of scenario having any basis in reality and for that reason alone it took the shine off the feeling of righteous justification that such an assault was meant to make the reader fell

All in all a reasonable read, but I don’t think I will be looking out for more works by the author.