testpattern's review
1.0
I wanted to like this, but the writing is really sloppy. Lynsky is so intent on hitting the high points of his odd, lopsided plot that he has no time for character development or anything more than the most perfunctory gestures towards creating a believable setting.
emiged's review
3.0
Interesting plot, the action kept moving, colorful cast of characters with lots of potential.
This is the first Frank Johnson book I've read, so perhaps I missed something coming into the middle of the series, but I felt that a lot of the characters teetered on the edge of caricature rather than well fleshed out real people. The foul language was gratuitous and distracting. Also, the ending didn't seem to fit - the PI almost single-handedly pursues the people responsible for the murder of his best friend, his best friend's wife and the reverend despite numerous obstacles and threats to his life, but then walks away from the last person he knows was involved? Just doesn't make sense to me...
For more book reviews, visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
This is the first Frank Johnson book I've read, so perhaps I missed something coming into the middle of the series, but I felt that a lot of the characters teetered on the edge of caricature rather than well fleshed out real people. The foul language was gratuitous and distracting. Also, the ending didn't seem to fit - the PI almost single-handedly pursues the people responsible for the murder of his best friend, his best friend's wife and the reverend despite numerous obstacles and threats to his life, but then walks away from the last person he knows was involved? Just doesn't make sense to me...
For more book reviews, visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
moreadsbooks's review
3.0
This took me almost a week to read even though it's only about 200 pages. Lynskey has a voice that reminds me quite a bit of Daniel Woodrell's; sharp & precise yet tough to find the rhythm of at first. He uses neat turns of phrase that had me forever stumbling & stopping to go back over what I'd just read. I'd get to a line like, "Once her supply of golf balls was depleted, she'd scurry into the stand of persimmons & gather up her stock in a copper wok," and be so tickled I'd have to read it again. Or "Abe's was no five-diamond eatery, but under the forgiving streetlamps, it was a nice nook," would make me pause & think, wow, he did just say that. Very pretty. There's a wee bit too much to the story; I honestly could've done without the whole of the Frank's cousin breaking out of jail plot line (especially since if Frank & Old Man hadn't ill-advisedly passed out in a hotel near Bitteroot, Old Man might have lived to the end of the book; possibly his eventual death is why the thread exists in the first place ) but I liked this quite a bit.
canadianbookworm's review
3.0
The main character in this thriller is Frank Johnson, a Virginia private investigator who has recently moved to a cabin in the woods in West Virginia, trying to make a break with his past. He is befriended by Old Man Maddox, a retired CIA man. Maddox and his paraplegic wife Jan are Frank's nearest neighbours, and live over the ridge from him. When Frank sees a Stinger rocket take down a drone one evening over the woods near him, he calls on Maddox to help investigate. Frank ends up targeted for injury and vandalism and the investigations of the two men lead them into further danger including murder. All the clues lead back to a group called the Blue Cheer, but the local authorities seem too eager to turn the other way. What with corrupt lawmakers, lots of drinking, and a love for bluegrass, this book takes the two into a world of open racism and unbridled hate.
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