An interesting treat that I almost did not read because of the title and the main character's name.
The title is "Death by Didgeridoo" and only the rare person who knows what a didgeridoo is goes into this story with even a clue as to blunt force trauma being involved-- and unless I sent a text or an email, none of the people I told about, even though they are murder mystery focused were able to find it without the word spelled correctly. One search engine had a two letter off version of name finally pull it up-- on page six of the possible links. "Jamie Quinn" is the name of a well known male actor, and searching by the name of the main character was a wash out, too, so it is not that easy to casually mention and have the other person find it quickly. If it starts with "ya gotta spell it just right, right" it made referral difficult.
I have been on a kick of reading pocket novels-- these things one notch longer than a short story and a notch shorter than a novella. It took me a month of digging to find that name "pocket novel" being used, and it seems this length "freestanding story" is most popular around major wars, epidemics, dust bowls, major depressions, events or circumstances where you need the work to be very short to feel confident you will finish it. In good times and times of peace without an epidemic knocking on your door, then people feel more comfortable in going with longer work, and in really great times the books get longer and longer and longer, sometimes subdividing into "a book" being one component of a very long work. Strangely enough, the pocket novel and the "longer than the highway novel in segments" seem to overlap, with free standing "normal novel length" work showing up in the good times.
As a pocket novel, this was exceptional. The lawyers actually sounded like lawyers, which is very rare in the crime genre or murder mystery flavored work. It turned out the author is actually an attorney, so the language is dead on perfect for lawyers, and that helped greatly, and explains why the careful explanation as to flavors of lawyer needed was clearly addressed. Even most of those "legally trained" lawyers who write fiction don't carefully keep the voice and tone right, or to address the conflict language. Doing it right is a big plus, and makes the story work better than 99% of this genre.
No, it was not perfect. and the "railroad the kid" action by the police seemed improbable simply because a bent out of shape person younger acting than his age just does not work as a killer, and their normal response is to look for who used the kid to cover their tracks. It is kind of like a flag for the homicide guys.
I usually veer away from the violent crime story, but this was the story of a woman trying to force herself to be an adult after a family death, and it had a large component of character growth. That made the murder(s) second tier to character growth and is attractive in its own right.
There was a dearth of misspelled words, and a drought of confusing sentences that require multiple readings to figure out what is happening. That is a plus factor in my opinion, but a lot of mystery or crime work seems to thrive on spelling to confuse and confusing the reader to slip past the clues. I felt it was really a nine out of ten, or in the five star scale, a five out of five stars.
The characters are real, the situation has very real conflict levels, and it actually was more building the story and less of the pulling "a rabbit out of a hat" storytelling.
It was worth the read.
.
Scarica l'app Kindle gratuita e inizia a leggere immediatamente i libri Kindle sul tuo smartphone, tablet o computer, senza bisogno di un dispositivo Kindle.
Leggi immediatamente sul browser con Kindle per il Web.
Con la fotocamera del cellulare scansiona il codice di seguito e scarica l'app Kindle.
Segui l'autore
Si è verificato un errore. Riprova a effettuare la richiesta più tardi.
Outlet Libri
Libri a prezzo scontato Scopri
Libri in questa serie (6 libri)
Serie completa
Pagina 1 di 1Ricomincia da capoPagina 1 di 1
-
2The Case of the Killer Divorce (Jamie Quinn Mystery Book 2) (English Edition)
Edizione Kindle2,99 €
Chi ha acquistato questo articolo ha acquistato anche
Pagina 1 di 1 RicominciaPagina 1 di 1
Informazioni sull'autore
Segui gli autori per ottenere aggiornamenti sulle nuove uscite, oltre a consigli avanzati.
Le recensioni migliori da altri paesi
H. W. Stone
The title and the main character's name got in the way,
Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 31 maggio 2022
Jesse O. Vann III
Death by Didgeridoo
Recensito negli Stati Uniti il 9 febbraio 2024