Category: Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Few months back, I’d read Gerald So’s post about this romantic comdey-ish novel, put it on my amazon wish list, and let it sit there for while. Finally got around to throwing it in the shopping cart so I could get the free shipping.

Boy, am I ever glad I did that! Paul Levine has got himself a new fan. This was a fun read, very likeable characters, clever writing, and a satisfactory mystery.

Okay, so here’s the setup (very minor spoiler): You’ve got your easy-going, maverick, street smart, fun-loving guy with the unorthodox methods, Steve Solomon (read: David Addison, Sam Malone, Dharma Finklestein); and you’ve got your uptight, gorgeous, book smart, cultured, plays-by-the-rules gal, Victoria Lord (read: Maddie Hays, Diane Chambers, Greg Montgomery). He’s a defense lawyer, she’s a prosecutor (at least until she gets fired due to his antics). His name’s monosyllabic, hers isn’t. Hilarity and attraction ensues. Sure, have seen and read this more times than I can count. And it either works or it doesn’t. There is no middle ground. And it does. Wonderfully.

Their chemistry, the back-and-forth, the will-they-or-won’t-they fit nicely into the case that they try together. Actually, it’s not really a will-they-or-won’t-they, it’s a when-will-they. Levine tells (occasionally retells) the story by flipping back and forth between either perspective. Again, that’s something that works or it doesn’t. It worked.

The supporting cast of characters is great as well–Steve’s father, the gang of retirees who hang out at the courthouse, Victoria’s friend, her fiancé, the models who own the building Steve’s office is in, their client…they all fall into the category of “have seen this before,” but Levine uses them well–and they don’t normally feel like the clichés they could so easily be.

There’s one member of the supporting cast who doesn’t feel like he came from a paint-by-number mystery: Steve’s nephew, Bobby. Don’t want to give too much away, but he’s a sweet 10-year old boy, with a memory that won’t quit, autistic tendencies, the ability to make any name into a dirty anagram, and a loving uncle. Victoria will come to locate the decency of Steve in Bobby–and I have come to center the humanity of the series in Bobby.

The book can feel like a pilot episode for a TV series–and Gerald says there’s maybe one in the works. I hope not. I just can’t imagine them getting Bobby right–he’ll either be cast off, or turned into a Wesley Crusher-esque wunderkind. If they do push ahead–the success or failure of the show will be dependent upon one thing: casting. They get the right Steve and the right Victoria and the show will work. If not, fuhgeddaboutit.

Highly recommended–I’m pretty sure I had a smile on my face most of the time I was reading it–and for a book that clocks in just under 600 pages, that’s saying something.

There’s just no way that I could read this during the school year–but that’s not a slam, I just couldn’t justify the time. But it’s summer, and my brain is mushy. So I grabbed a couple of books just to read–not to think about, mull over, swim in (like Gibson’s foray out of SF)–just to read. I’d been wanting to try Hiaasen for awhile, and Skin Tight was the earliest work by him at the library, so figured I’d give it a try.

Glad I did–this was a fun read…dialogue was fairly snappy, some authentically comic situations, characters weren’t brilliantly drawn, but well enough. I can see why Dave Barry’s novels are (favorably) compared to his, and that’s a compliment. Probably a better way to spend a couple of hours than most of the fare at the movies this summer–but with as much lasting quality. Thumbs up.

…speaking of mushy brains: another book I checked out from the library should be arriving by the end of the week from amazon.com–which I was reminded of once I came home. How stupid can I be? Kletois and Norris are kindly uninvited to answer that one in the comments 🙂

Just to get my brain working again after being spent on my term paper and a series of exhortation in which I covered the major portions Philippians (pretty much anyway, one or two more and I’d be completely satisfied), I needed to read a novel. Preferably mystery. Inspired by Bones to try out Kathy Reichs’ mystery novels I wanted to go back to the beginning, Déjá Dead–I hate jumping into a novel series mid-stream. I will do it, but I’ll hate it. Of course, the local library’s copy was out last week, so I settled with book two, Death du Jour–close enough to the beginning.

First thing that hit me–the Temperance Brennan of Reichs’ novels is not Bones‘ Temperance Brennan aside from the name and occupation. That fact kept hitting me over the head for the first 200 +/- pages. And not like RBP’s Spenser isn’t Spenser: For Hire. This woman is older (well, duh, Fox isn’t going to center a new show around a middle-aged woman)–but this woman has a kid in college, not only gets pop culture references, she makes them. The character as a whole is different. (and don’t get me started on Andrew Ryan vs. Seeley Booth)

I was finally able to get that out of my mind (which is part of the reason I’m cutting that previous paragraph short, I had a pretty good list going there). It took me awhile, but I came to sorta like this version of Tempe (from here on out, on the Noise book Brennan=Tempe, TV Brennan=Bones, assuming I remember that, and assuming I ever read another one). Not so sure I liked Tempe’s family (too cliché), her attachment to her cat (makes me yearn for something stable, like Susan Silverman’s attachment to Pearl), the way that everything she did during the course of the novel was directly associated with everything else (sorry, slight spoiler). Her fans might celebrate that as complexity, I call it laziness.

Now, I’m not against writers having similar themes going on in what appear to be unrelated storylines. But if apparently unrelated storylines turn out to be all one huge convoluted storyline–you’d better make me believe it was possible. More coincidences in this book than most Dickens novels. So in Canada we have: the nun that was doing some documentary help on a consultation case, a arson-murder Tempe helps on, a professor she talks to about the first case (oh, and the prof happens to have the nun’s niece working for her). In Texas Tempe’s sister Harry takes some seminar at a junior college. In South Carolina Tempe’s old buddy Sam who runs a wildlife refuge (of sorts) that she takes her daughter to for a paper the kid has to write is in the same county as some others tied into the arson-murder, and some bodies end up being found at the refuge. And every single one of these things is related to every single other in one huge, nation-wide plot.

Thankfully there’s this forensic anthropologist that can put it all together–after fixating on a few red-herrings. But thankfully she has a dream that helps out.

Oh please.

The writing was at times clever, at times it felt like she was trying to hard. Gerald So said that the little of Reichs he’d sampled struck him as “common slightly overwritten thriller.” Slightly overwritten pretty much nails it. The sex-scene, or almost sex-scene was filled with much too much detail. Not writing as a prude, just someone who doesn’t need that much filled out. Robert B. Parker can do more in 3 brief paragraphs on that topic than she did in her 2-3 very detailed pages.

That level of detail was also there in describing the bodies, in describing what insects do to cadavers (this is why I’m glad Gideon Oliver’s bodies are usually skeletons–no insects), etc. Sometimes felt over the top, a little gratuitous. But hey, she’s a scientist (a “squint” as Booth would say), let her strut her stuff.

On the whole, it was a good read–a little longer than I figured it’d take. I’m not rushing out to get number 3 (or number 1 if it happens to be in), definitely not adding her to my “to buy” list. But, satisfying read.