Meter Made: A Jack Meter Case File

Jack Meter Case Files

by M.D. Benoit

Jack Meter has taken care of Annie’s murderer and saved the universe. He’s beginning to feel better about life in general when Peter Winston, lawyer and friend, brings him a potential client. Lambert Garner, a rich eccentric developer, claims one of his buildings has disappeared into thin air, and he wants Jack to find it. Jack thinks Garner is a nutcase until he goes to the building site and gets a tickle from his telecarb, the world-hopping device the Thrittene can't seem to be able to remove from his wrist. Soon, Jack discovers that there’s more to space than he first thought, and now it’s all bleeding together, destabilizing the cosmos. It's possible to travel from one parallel universe to the other –if one has the right equipment, something Neola Durwin, a sexy intergalactic agent, possesses. But it's not only universes merging that worries Neola—someone is stealing pieces of them, just like they stole Garner's building. Jack teams up with Neola to find out why cosmic real estate is disappearing, where it’s disappearing to and who is responsible. The road takes a sharp turn when he comes face-to-face with his exact double from another universe. Is the other Jack involved in the thefts? Who are his accomplices? And in the end, which of the two Jacks will remain standing?

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

M. D. has been writing for over ten years. Metered Space, from the noir SF Mystery series The Jack Meter Case Files, was her first published novel. The next one in the series, Meter Made, came out in November 2005. Another Jack Meter Case File, Meter Destiny, is scheduled to come out in 2007-08, from Zumaya Otherworlds. Her first SF Thriller, Synergy, was released in March 2007 .

In 2000, M. D. edited a children's anthology, "The Friendship Anthology", published by
the Nepean Public Library, and was the editor of a Canadian Anthology, Looking In... Portraits of the Canadian Soul, a collection of stories, essays and poetry, accompanied by pictures taken by a series of Canadian photographers from across the country. She has also been involved in numerous additional editing projects such as Now we're cooking! 43 Authors in the Kitchen.

M. D. also writes reviews of SF novels for The Eternal Night, an online SF Review site from the UK.

M. D. Benoit discovered science fiction and mystery through her father's bedtime stories, which were always full of gadgets, dark doorways, and disappearing people. She lives in Ottawa, Canada, with her husband and her cat (who is really an alien in disguise). She has a Masters Degree in Psychology from Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she lived for eight years before moving to Ottawa, Ontario.

She is currently hard at work on her sixth manuscript, Entropy and a fourth Jack Meter Case File, Meter Parents.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Metered Space, and it was a strong three. Based on that I read Meter Made, the second in the series. This was a weaker three.

It started out almost a travelogue--meaning the storyline wasn't advanced much for the first part, although Jack Meter was going lots of places. Once the story started moving, it move well. The ending was either confusing (or I missed something) or it was just setup for the last of the trilogy, Meter Destiny, which I plan on reading.

So you have a Private Investigator. We was rudely introduced into aliens and other places in the galaxy in the first book. You will want to have read the first one to understand all the references in this one.

The first one set an emotional basis, but it read like facts to me. This one did attach me to the emotional storyline for most of it.

This one starts with Jack Meter being asked to investigate a missing building, which no one remembers except the owner. The story hangs together, it presents most of what you need to figure it out--I like the feeling of reading a passage and thinking, something here isn't right, now what is it. Like the first, the mystery is solid, the SF is good, and there's a bit of humor thrown in for good measure.

[Michèle · Rating 3 out of 5]

An honest, funny hardboiled detective story, set in current Ottawa.

Jack Meter,s client wants him to find a lost... building, disappeared into thin air will all the tenants! Fortunately, our hard-boiled detective has a device that helps him to jump universes, and almost-too powerful E-T friends eager to help him.

And the current novel is set on the steps after a first one (that I did not read), we learned that our hero has just come home from saving the universe (nothing less, folks!) and lo and behold, he has to save it again. Will he trace the missing chunks of this universes before it is too late? Enter the requisite strange and cute foxy lady... and the evil double!

The whole obvious mechanic of the detective genre, plus the going and chasing through universe-jumping gates and hidden portals and teleporting devices were just "too-over-the-board" for me. The suspension of disbelief can only be kept so long. And the end worked too much like "it had just been a dream" to be satisfying for the reader who followed jack and friends through the endless portals and universe-jumping gates.

Nevertheless: a enjoyable read, funny descriptions of aliens, witty humor, and nice interior monologues of the not-so-brooding hero.