THE BRANSON BEAUTY (PolProd-Sheriff Hank Worth-Missouri-Contemp) – 1st in series – Claire Booth
When the tourist showboat The Branson Beauty runs aground on an Ozark lake, new sheriff Hank Worth is responsible for getting all the passengers off safely, which he does—all save one. He finds a murder victim in the captain’s dining room, a beloved local athlete who wasn’t even supposed to be on the boat. Now Hank must unravel her movements and hunt down her killer while navigating the cutthroat politics and dark secrets of the small town that he now calls home.
Joni – Okay - Paddlewheel boat. Semi-locked room kind of plot. Sounded like it had some promise. It didn’t. I kept thinking of oatmeal. Bland, dull, predictable. The characters, plot, and even the setting were tedious at best. The victim was too good to be real. I’ve already pretty much forgotten the rest of the characters and I just finished the book last night. The PTSD trigger did not ring true for me and seemed gratuitous. Since I got through it, I’ll give it an Okay. Nancy – Okay - This book was a quick, easy to read police procedural, a genre I enjoy. Clearly a first novel whose characters were initially interesting but unfortunately then went on to become flat, undeveloped and repetitive. Main character Sheriff Hank for example, although likeable, was for the most part, simply a stereotypically cool, tough lawman who couldn’t seem to stop scowling. With the exception of the story line about boat pilot’s PTSD, I never really came to care about any of the book’s characters or about the mystery of who killed Mandy. Hopefully future books in this series will be better developed. I’d be willing to give another one a try. Ron – G+ - Well-written, good protagonist and secondary characters, with a couple of well-placed red herrings. Obviously the first book in a planned series.
GROUP RATING AVERAGE: Good
SLEEPLESS CITY (Susp-Nick Ryan-NYC-Contemp) – 1st in series – Reed Farrel Coleman
Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all. He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city. He’s the mayor’s private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves. With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he’s a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He’s a soldier of the streets with his own personal code. But what happens when the man who knows all the city’s secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law?
Gabriel – Okay - It made me want to keep reading, but not to want to read the rest of the series. The author tries to balance Nick Ryan being socially conscious and macho/super-tough--does an OK job mostly, but not great. Some of the characters were pretty interesting. It was somewhat enjoyable to read. But it sometimes jumped between different plot threads/different "missions" Nick was on. And the main villain was over-the-top. Nancy – Poor - Maureen Corrigan calling this book’s author a hard boiled poet was of course impressive. Author Reed Coleman has indeed written a tough as nails very detailed police procedural about Nick Ryan, a very hard boiled protagonist. I still like police procedurals, dark TV shows and books but the violence in “Sleepless City” was almost too much even for me. I guess the author felt all those violent details were required to justify an antihero like Nick Ryan. Ryan’s perfect looks, constant unearthly calm and never ending success against enormous odds in the face of constant potential death, never made him completely believable to me. His big ego and repeated immorality sure didn’t make him very likeable either. There were some plot holes too. Even so, after employing my willing suspension of disbelief, I did end up rooting for him and did like it when he threw those medals away. But did every female character in this book need to be gorgeous, need saving and use limited and canned dialogue? I’m so sick of this depiction of women in mysteries-please make it stop. Joni – DNF – Only made it through two chapters. It was just too violent for her. Ron – VG+ - Fast-paced, well-written police procedural with a unique twist, fascinating lead character, and distinctive and interesting secondary characters. The book almost makes vigilantism an attractive option. The weakness of a book like this is that it makes the villains into cartoonish monsters. The four major villains in this book who are either assassinated or get another form of divine retribution have absolutely no humanity or redeeming features. Three of them greatly enjoy hurting other people and the other has absolutely no empathy for any of his victims.
GROUP RATING AVERAGE: Okay
THE LAST ONE (Thriller-Caz-mid-Atlantic Ocean-Contemp) – Standalone – Will Dean
When Caz steps onboard the exclusive cruise liner RMS Atlantica, it’s the start of a vacation of a lifetime with her new love, Pete. On their first night they explore the ship, eat, dance, make friends, but when Caz wakes the next morning, Pete is missing. And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning of the terrifying journey she finds herself trapped on in this white-knuckled mystery.
Gabriel – Okay - Frustrating to a large degree. The revelation about their situation took over 100 pages to happen. And then ... what keeps happening, their lack of success, is like watching them being kicked when they're down over and over. And the end is a shocking twist for the sake of having a shocking twist. But I'm giving it an OK because the characters were, not great, but good enough to make me care what happened to them. And I was in suspense about how they would cope with their situation, and if they'd be able to improve it. Helen – Poor – Thinks the author needs psychiatric help. The plausibility was seriously lacking. She couldn’t connect with any of the characters and the last sentence was ridiculous. Joni – Poor - The pacing was good enough to keep me reading to the end. That is my last positive comment about it. I got through it quickly, mostly because I kept skipping the repetitive parts about how traumatized Caz was by her father’s gambling problem. Take all that out and the book would be 100 pages shorter. The characters were shallow and oddly unlikeable. The premise was idiotic. The writing was awful. WTF was up with the dogs? It was never explained. If I write what I thought about the ending, I would get kicked off Facebook for months. When I finished it, I wanted to throw it across the room, but I have it on Kindle. Since AARRRRGGGHHH isn’t an official EBMRG rating, I’ll give it Poor. Nancy – Okay - This book was fun and a good antidote to the violence of “Sleepless City”. The final ending on the airplane was a bit of a surprise, although I felt like I should have seen it coming. Caz was a good narrator of her inner voice and psychological experience. The other characters felt more flat and the book itself probably could have done the job in fewer pages. I did enjoy my initial mental picture of the two big red lips on the TV though. Clearly the whole story was bogus from the start, but was still a decent beach read.
When the tourist showboat The Branson Beauty runs aground on an Ozark lake, new sheriff Hank Worth is responsible for getting all the passengers off safely, which he does—all save one. He finds a murder victim in the captain’s dining room, a beloved local athlete who wasn’t even supposed to be on the boat. Now Hank must unravel her movements and hunt down her killer while navigating the cutthroat politics and dark secrets of the small town that he now calls home.
Joni – Okay - Paddlewheel boat. Semi-locked room kind of plot. Sounded like it had some promise. It didn’t. I kept thinking of oatmeal. Bland, dull, predictable. The characters, plot, and even the setting were tedious at best. The victim was too good to be real. I’ve already pretty much forgotten the rest of the characters and I just finished the book last night. The PTSD trigger did not ring true for me and seemed gratuitous. Since I got through it, I’ll give it an Okay.
Nancy – Okay - This book was a quick, easy to read police procedural, a genre I enjoy. Clearly a first novel whose characters were initially interesting but unfortunately then went on to become flat, undeveloped and repetitive. Main character Sheriff Hank for example, although likeable, was for the most part, simply a stereotypically cool, tough lawman who couldn’t seem to stop scowling. With the exception of the story line about boat pilot’s PTSD, I never really came to care about any of the book’s characters or about the mystery of who killed Mandy. Hopefully future books in this series will be better developed. I’d be willing to give another one a try.
Ron – G+ - Well-written, good protagonist and secondary characters, with a couple of well-placed red herrings. Obviously the first book in a planned series.
GROUP RATING AVERAGE: Good
SLEEPLESS CITY (Susp-Nick Ryan-NYC-Contemp) – 1st in series – Reed Farrel Coleman
Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don’t talk about him at all. He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city. He’s the mayor’s private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves. With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he’s a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He’s a soldier of the streets with his own personal code. But what happens when the man who knows all the city’s secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law?
Gabriel – Okay - It made me want to keep reading, but not to want to read the rest of the series. The author tries to balance Nick Ryan being socially conscious and macho/super-tough--does an OK job mostly, but not great. Some of the characters were pretty interesting. It was somewhat enjoyable to read. But it sometimes jumped between different plot threads/different "missions" Nick was on. And the main villain was over-the-top.
Nancy – Poor - Maureen Corrigan calling this book’s author a hard boiled poet was of course impressive. Author Reed Coleman has indeed written a tough as nails very detailed police procedural about Nick Ryan, a very hard boiled protagonist. I still like police procedurals, dark TV shows and books but the violence in “Sleepless City” was almost too much even for me. I guess the author felt all those violent details were required to justify an antihero like Nick Ryan. Ryan’s perfect looks, constant unearthly calm and never ending success against enormous odds in the face of constant potential death, never made him completely believable to me. His big ego and repeated immorality sure didn’t make him very likeable either. There were some plot holes too. Even so, after employing my willing suspension of disbelief, I did end up rooting for him and did like it when he threw those medals away. But did every female character in this book need to be gorgeous, need saving and use limited and canned dialogue? I’m so sick of this depiction of women in mysteries-please make it stop.
Joni – DNF – Only made it through two chapters. It was just too violent for her.
Ron – VG+ - Fast-paced, well-written police procedural with a unique twist, fascinating lead character, and distinctive and interesting secondary characters. The book almost makes
vigilantism an attractive option. The weakness of a book like this is that it makes the villains into cartoonish monsters. The four major villains in this book who are either assassinated or get another form of divine retribution have absolutely no humanity or redeeming features. Three of them greatly enjoy hurting other people and the other has absolutely no empathy for any of his victims.
GROUP RATING AVERAGE: Okay
THE LAST ONE (Thriller-Caz-mid-Atlantic Ocean-Contemp) – Standalone – Will Dean
When Caz steps onboard the exclusive cruise liner RMS Atlantica, it’s the start of a vacation of a lifetime with her new love, Pete. On their first night they explore the ship, eat, dance, make friends, but when Caz wakes the next morning, Pete is missing. And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning of the terrifying journey she finds herself trapped on in this white-knuckled mystery.
Gabriel – Okay - Frustrating to a large degree. The revelation about their situation took over 100 pages to happen. And then ... what keeps happening, their lack of success, is like watching them being kicked when they're down over and over. And the end is a shocking twist for the sake of having a shocking twist. But I'm giving it an OK because the characters were, not great, but good enough to make me care what happened to them. And I was in suspense about how they would cope with their situation, and if they'd be able to improve it.
Helen – Poor – Thinks the author needs psychiatric help. The plausibility was seriously lacking. She couldn’t connect with any of the characters and the last sentence was ridiculous.
Joni – Poor - The pacing was good enough to keep me reading to the end. That is my last positive comment about it. I got through it quickly, mostly because I kept skipping the repetitive parts about how traumatized Caz was by her father’s gambling problem. Take all that out and the book would be 100 pages shorter. The characters were shallow and oddly unlikeable. The premise was idiotic. The writing was awful. WTF was up with the dogs? It was never explained. If I write what I thought about the ending, I would get kicked off Facebook for months. When I finished it, I wanted to throw it across the room, but I have it on Kindle. Since AARRRRGGGHHH isn’t an official EBMRG rating, I’ll give it Poor.
Nancy – Okay - This book was fun and a good antidote to the violence of “Sleepless City”. The final ending on the airplane was a bit of a surprise, although I felt like I should have seen it coming. Caz was a good narrator of her inner voice and psychological experience. The other characters felt more flat and the book itself probably could have done the job in fewer pages. I did enjoy my initial mental picture of the two big red lips on the TV though. Clearly the whole story was bogus from the start, but was still a decent beach read.
GROUP RATING AVERAGE: Okay