Atlantis Lost - J. Robert Kennedy

   2018; 250 pages.  Book 21 (out of 34) in the “James Acton Thrillers” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Technothriller; Pulp Thriller.  Overall Rating: 5½*/10.

 

    It's a good-luck/bad-luck situation.

 

    While diving in the ocean off the shores of Pico Island in the Azores, Sergeants Carl “Niner” Sung and Jerry “Jimmy Olsen” Hudson find themselves dangerously close to an underwater landslide just as they're running low on oxygen.  Bad luck, guys!

 

    Ah, but the shifting of the seabed has uncovered what looks like some ancient Roman columns.  That might mean there’s a whole sunken city here, previously undiscovered, and who knows, it could even be the legendary lost city of Atlantis!  What a stroke of good luck!

 

    Too bad neither Sung nor Hudson know anything about how to excavate a site, especially one under a couple hundred feet of ocean.  Bad luck, guys.  If indeed this is the remains of Atlantis, you might’ve become famous.

 

    Luckily, you’re pals with a husband/wife team of archaeology professors, James Acton and Laura Palmer.  You can give them a call once you get back to shore, and they can fly over and check out those columns.  There’s nothing wrong with sharing half the fame with them.

 

    As long as no one else snorkels into the area in the meantime.

 

What’s To Like...

    The title of the book notwithstanding, the book’s main storyline involves a group of anti-technology, anti-social-media protesters that just happen to also be carrying out their plans in these same waters.  They don’t appreciate the archaeological intruders, and intend to take steps to oust our heroes no matter what.  And although their ideology is ultimately flawed, it appears that J. Robert Kennedy sympathizes with their aims, which I thought was kind of neat.

 

    The action starts right away, and continues slam-bam throughout the entire book.  Most of the excitement is over-the-top, but if you like Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt tales, you’ll love this series.  There are a pair of secondary plotlines: one set in ancient times as Atlantis faces its impending doom (which is not a spoiler; the reader is told this on the first page of the first chapter); the other set in present-day Shanghai.  More about these later.

 

    As the author notes, although Atlantis is generally considered a myth, Plato makes reference to it in his writings, implying that it had sunk into the ocean centuries before his time.  The truth is, to date no reliable evidence has ever been found of Atlantis’s existence, but that just means J. Robert Kennedy can let his imagination run wild in creating his version of it here.  I thought the Atlantean rapid transit system he dreamed up was quite intriguing.

 

    I chuckled at the interjection “damn skippy”.  Until reading this book I had always assumed it was just a made-up phrase coined by Janet Evanovich.  I was also happy to see the Luddites get mentioned, and loved the cited copyediting conundrum: “is it ‘Briticism’ or ‘Britishism'?  

 

    Speaking of which, it should be noted that someone did a great job at editing Atlantis Lost.  I didn’t catch any typos, although the history buff in me needs to mention that an ancient Atlantean seen wearing “undergarments” at one point is historically unlikely.

    For those averse to excessive cussing, Atlantis Lost is quite clean; I counted only 8 instances in the first 25% of the book.  There were a couple rolls-in-the-hay, however, which makes me wonder who the target audience is.

 

    The ending, at least for the main storyline, is decent, if predictable.  The bad guys get their comeuppance and most are disposed of; the good guys all survive, ready to save the world yet again in the next book in the series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 233 ratings and 46 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.33/5 based on 220 ratings and 11 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Damn skippy (n., phrase) : a term of approval or excitement.

 

Excerpts...

    The fringe elements were, of course, out in full force, claiming pending doom, but they had always existed, long before the earthquakes began.  Killer waves, angry gods, invasion fleets from beyond the Pillars of Hercules, even massive rocks from the skies, were always dominating the conversations of those with too much time on their hands.  (loc. 557)

 

    “Do you want to get real answers, or continue the name-calling?”

    There was silence for a moment before Nelson took back the meeting.  “We’ll move forward with your suggestion, Leif.  In the meantime, we have to assume that this individual is serious, and decide what to do about it.”

    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs shook his head.  “We can’t pay the money.  We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

    Morrison grunted.  “We all know that’s bullshit.  We’re always negotiating with terrorists, we just do it through third parties.”  (loc. 1592)

 

Kindle Details…

    Atlantis Lost costs $7.99 at Amazon right now, with the other books in the series running anywhere from free and $7.99.  The prices generally increase as the e-books get newer.  J. Robert Kennedy has several other action-adventure series to offer, with similar pricing strategies.

 

“Somebody remind me to insult him when we go topside.”  (loc. 509)

    There are nits to pick.  Atlantis Lost was my introduction to this series, and I gather that there is a recurring multinational, multi-agency team of agents who help our husband-wife pair of archaeologists save the day on a recurring basis.  I don’t think this hampered my ability to grasp what was going on, but it did introduce some head-scratching tangents.

 

    Most notably, the subplot featuring CIA special agent Dylan Kane in China has absolutely no tie-in to the main storyline.  For that matter, about the only purpose the Atlantis-based subplot served was to give the book a catchy title.  I kept waiting for it to tie in somewhere; but it never did.  Indeed, after flip-flopping chapters with the main storyline, it disappears around 50% Kindle, surfacing only briefly at the very end as a disappointing and predictable epilogue.

 

    The characters are either all black or white, none are gray.  The Russian and Chinese officials are corrupt, cold-blooded, and cruel, and will only cooperate with the Western agents if they’re sweet-talked into it.  They also like to hire simpletons to serve as guards for very critical missions.

 

    The Atlantean worldbuilding was unconvincing to me.  The “copies of portraits” didn’t make any sense (did they have copying machines?), and “message stream” strained my suspension-of-disbelief ability.  The “protests for free speech” felt 20^th-century, not ancient, and the whole idea of a "Senior Enforcer" being a young female is historically doubtful.

 

    But maybe my expectations for this series are askew.  First and foremost, Atlantis Lost is a pulp thriller, not a work of historical fiction.  Perhaps I should just put my analytical brain into deep-freeze at the first page, and sit back and enjoy the thrills, kills, and heart-pounding thrills, without musing about how Atlantis, if it ever existed, might have really been.  Indiana Jones would approve.

 

    5½ Stars.  I have a couple more books from this series on my Kindle, which means I have a couple more opportunities to get the hang of J. Robert Kennedy's literary approach.  For the record, the only Clive Cussler book I've read did not impress me at all, but I have many (adult) friends and acquaintances who are totally addicted to Cussler's Dirk Pitt tales.  I may be in the minority on this.

Tutti Frutti - Mike Faricy

   2013; 329 pages.  Book 5 (out of 28) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating: 8*/10.

 

    For Private Investigator Dev Haskell, the assignment is a dream job.

 

    First of all, his client is his attorney and drinking buddy, Louie Laufen.  It’s good to know the background of the person who’s hiring you.

 

    Even better is the job itself: just go down to a local nightclub called the Tutti Frutti, sip some suds, and see if you can detect some illegal gambling going on.  Even if you don’t notice anything amiss, you get to come back and collect your fee.  So down to the club goes Dev.

 

    He doesn't see any sign of gambling, but one thing quickly catches his eye.  Everyone at the club – customers and workers alike – seems to be slap-happy, using a spank on the butt in place of a handshake or a hug.  Dev finds that kind of weird, but hey, to each his own, and maybe they’re foreigners of some sort.  Such as Canadians.  Or Texans.

 

    Oh well, enjoy your drink, Dev.  If you think the butt-slapping is strange, wait till you see the floorshow.

 

What’s To Like...

    Tutti Frutti is Book 5 in Mike Faricy’s always-entertaining pulp thriller “Dev Haskell - Private Investigator” series and follows the usual formula: Dev’s “easy” job rapidly spins out of control, the women he hits on often have ulterior motives for tolerating his advances, crimes get committed, and somehow the police conclude Dev’s the most likely perpetrator.

 

    There's a plethora of plotlines.  In addition to the illegal gambling probe, Dev has murders to solve, mobsters to be wary of, flower deliveries of undetermined origin and motive to backtrack, and, most important of all, embarrassing photos of himself in compromising positions to explain, pics that he has no recollection posing for and which are now being spread around to the worst possible associates of Dev: his bedmates and the cops.  

 

    The story is set in St. Paul Minnesota and told from a first-person point-of-view.  The chapters are short, with 60 of them covering 329 pages.  I enjoyed tagging along with Dev as he muddles along, trying in vain to make sense of the mayhem, and although you can read this as a “whodunit”, I found it more fun to try to anticipate the steps Dev was taking to solve the mysteries and clear his name.

 

    Everything builds to a suitably exciting ending that included a couple of neat twists that I didn’t see coming, especially a clever evasive resource if you ever have to wear an ankle monitor as part of your plea deal agreement.  The final chapter was a neat little epilogue that I really enjoyed.

 

    Tutti Frutti is a standalone novel as well as part of a 28-book series.  I’m reading the books in order, but frankly, I don’t think that’s necessary.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.7/5 based on 440 ratings and 371 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.61/5 based on 758 ratings and 63 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    My phone rang.  It was Heidi’s number.  Probably calling to apologize now that she’d calmed down a bit.  I could understand her being upset, but I was glad she’d seen the light.

   “Hi, Heidi, are we feeling a little better, dear?”

    “Shut up you slimy piece of toilet scum.  I just want you to listen to this,” she screamed.  (loc. 16128)

 

    “And so your car got to her house how?”

    “I have no idea.  I have no memory of leaving her house.  The last thing I remember is her wearing a smile and a pair of these black knee high boots.  Kinda sexy,” I glanced at humorless Clara, but she remained focused on her notebook.  “Candi gave me a drink.  I don’t know what the drink was.  I just know that it burned when it went down.  I remember that.  Oh, and she got the stuff in Mexico.”

    “Tequila?”

    “I don’t know what it was.”

    “Are you in the habit of drinking drinks that you don’t know what they are?”

    “Sometimes.”  (loc. 17164)

 

Kindle Details…

    Tutti Frutti is priced at $3.99 at Amazon, as are all the other books in this series.  You can also pick up the entire series in various 5- or 7-book bundles, which are all priced at $9.99.  Mike Faricy also offers a couple novellas in the same setting for $0.99 apiece.    He has at least two other series: Jack Dillon Dublin Tales and Hotshot, neither of which I have tried yet; the books in those cost $2.99-$3.99.

 

“Hello, Biker?  Woof, woof, woof, grrrr.”  (loc. 14315)

    The usual quibbles about this series apply to Tutti Frutti as well.  The biggest problem is the abundance of typos.  I noted a couple dozen of them, almost all of them “spellchecker errors”.  Some of the ones that made me chuckle were: sexist/sexiest, phased/fazed, psyche/psych, and my favorite, statute-like/statue-like.  Compound words, such as shot gun/shotgun, after thought/afterthought, and here by/hereby also plagued the text.

 

    It turns out the Tutti Frutti Club is a “bondage-dom” establishment, and this seemed to offend some reviewers.  Others thought there was too much booze-drinking and "rolling-in-the-hay", but I disagree.  These are hard-boiled mysteries, not cozies, although if you’re looking for a Fifty Shades of Grey tale, you’re going to be very disappointed.  Admittedly, there is a fair amount of cussing (15 instances in the first 10%) and lots of spanking, but even the latter was almost (but not quite) always done as a greeting between clothed individuals.

 

    8 Stars.      I’m five books through this series, and have yet to be bored by any of them.  The pacing is brisk, and there’s plenty of action, wit, and in Dev’s case, self-deprecating humor.  The character development is great, and I was happy to see Louie playing a greater role here.  The plot structure may be formulaic, but so what?  I like Mike Faricy’s formula.

Bombshell - Mike Faricy

    2012; 258 pages.  Book 4 (out of 29) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Somebody has been giving Harlotte Davidson, crowd favorite on the English women’s roller derby team, the Hastings Hustlers, the finger.  As in the middle finger.  Middle fingers, actually.  Four of them so far.  Severed human fingers.  Creepy.

 

    The Hastings Hustlers are currently on a US tour, and everyone’s on edge since those fingers were delivered, one apiece, at the last four stops along the way.  Their next match is against the Bombshells, the local roller derby team in Private Investigator Dev Haskell’s hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota.  Dev’s really excited about the Bombshells.

 

    Mostly he’s excited about one of the Bombshells, Justine, aka “Spankie”.  When she mentions that the Hustlers might be interested in some extra security for the St. Paul bout, Dev has an opportunity to mix business with pleasure, and maybe even catch the wacko with the middle finger fetish.

 

    Just where in the world does one go to procure a bunch of middle fingers?  I don’t think Amazon sells them.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bombshell is the fourth installment in Mike Faricy’s signature “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series, which is now up to 29 books.  I’m reading them in order, mostly because I have the bundled version of the first seven books.

 

    There’s really only one main storyline: what’s with the fingers, although that branches off into a.) who’s doing it, b.) where’s he getting the fingers from (there are no corpses popping up with missing middle fingers), and c.) what kind of sicko message is the perpetrator trying to convey?

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, which I’m pretty sure is true for the entire series.  The chapters are short: 51 of them, averaging about 5 pages apiece.  There’s lots of action, and the pacing is rapid.  My favorite side character, Louie Laufen (Dev’s lawyer) gets plenty of ink here, and I get the impression he’s going to show up a lot more in the series, since Dev makes a habit of running afoul of the St. Paul Police Department.  I liked how the relationship between Dev and Detective Manning is developing.  Neither one likes the other, but they’re gradually learning to grudgingly respect each one’s abilities.

 

    Full disclosure: there’s not a lot of roller derby action involved and there seemed to be less attention than usual devoted to Dev’s romantic pursuits.  He still scores several times, but strikes out a lot as well.  There are a bunch neat musical references, with special praise given to Lionel Richie (positive) and Leonard Cohen (negative).  But Ozzy’s last name of misspelled (it’s “Osbourne”, not “Osborn”) which is absolutely unforgiveable.  I’m proud to say I guessed the identity of the perp very early on, even though this isn’t really a whodunit.

 

    The ending is contrived, over-the-top, and eminently entertaining.  Several WTF’s are employed, which will not be detailed since they’d be spoilers.  The main plot thread is resolved with six chapters still to go, but there was a “hidden” plotline lurking in the tale, which gets resolved after the finger-sender has been apprehended.  The book closes with a LOL exchange between Dev and Detective Manning.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 345 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.69/5 based on 798 ratings and 75 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Gobshite (n.) : a stupid and incompetent person (Irish slang).

Others: Tosser (n., British slang); Plonker (n., also British slang)

 

Excerpts...

    In the past thirty minutes I’d been joined by Louie Laufen, my lawyer.  I was still handcuffed, although the cuffs were no longer behind my back.

    “Oh, God,” Louie half burped, then screwed the top back onto a blue plastic Maalox bottle.  “I don’t know what I ate last night.”

    “A bottle of Jim Beam from the smell of that burp,” I said.  (loc. 12216)

 

    “Look, to be honest I tried to get tickets to Lionel, but they were sold out,” I lied.

    “Oh, really?”

    “Yeah, honest,” I said, then leaned back and contentedly sipped my beer, feeling I was in safe territory.

    “So, the fact that you’re involved in this roller derby murder, and working with the police, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with us being here.  Is that right?”

    I sat forward and choked on a mouthful of beer.  If I felt around, I’d probably detect the thin ice I was suddenly on.  (loc. 13448)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bombshell is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now, as are all the other books in this series, with the exception of Book 28, The Big Gamble, which is discounted to $2.99.  You can also buy the first seven books bundled together for $9.99, which is quite the savings.  Mike Faricy has several other series for your Kindle, and most if not all of those books go for either $2.99 or $3.99.

 

“How the hell could someone have access to a steady supply of fingers?”  (loc. 12017)

    Most of the nitpicking has already been noted: the WTF’s in the ending, the mangling of Sir Ozzy’s last name, and the rolls-in-the-hay, a staple of this series, and which seem to offend some readers.  The cussing is not excessive – I counted only 13 cases in the first 20% of the book – and the one use of the epithet “douche bag” made me chuckle.

 

    The main problem, as several Goodreads reviewers also noted, is the abundance of typos and grammar misusage.  “Osborn/Osbourne” is just the tip of the iceberg.  Commas are abused, as are apostrophes, and compound words such as raincoat, hairbrush, handcuffed, and fundraising, are habitually separated into two words.  Some of the more humorous slipups were snuggly/snugly, pricy/pricey, and complacency/complicity.

 

    There’s no arguing that these grammar gaffes distract, but I think awarding a one-star rating because of them, as some Goodreads reviewers did,  is excessive.  I recognize that most indie authors double as their own editors, which is inherently ineffective, but getting a couple of volunteers to proofread the manuscript should be cheap (a free copy of the book) and easy (just read it and record any errors).

 

    7 Stars.  Please keep in mind that the focus in these Dev Haskell books is on Dev's humor-filled and action-packed misadventures, both as a PI and a ladies’ man.  As such, it does not include a clever and tightly-constructed mystery.  To steal a quote from another reviewer, “check your brain at the door, and enjoy the ride”.  I did.

Bite Me - Mike Faricy

   2012; 326 pages.  Book 3 (out of 26) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Sometimes even bat-poop crazy sleeping partners come in handy.  Such as the queen of female psychos in Dev Haskell’s life right now, Kiki.

 

    It seems her brother is an “on-air personality” at a local radio station, KRAZ, and they are looking for someone to provide security for their employees.  Dev is a private investigator, and he might be able to fit a side-job as a daytime security guard at KRAZ into his busy schedule.

 

    Truth be told, Dev could fit it into just about any time slot in his schedule; he has zero clients at present.  But let’s not tell the staff at KRAZ that.

 

    It looks like the job will be easy-peasy.  KRAZ has only two employees: Kiki's brother and the CEO.  This is an all-talk, no-music station; they simply record a fifteen-minute sound bit of right-wing ranting and air it four times every day, at set times.  There are no commercials, and apparently no call-ins.  No wonder Dev’s never heard of KRAZ.

 

    It makes you wonder why they feel they need a bodyguard.  And how they’re going to be able to pay Dev.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bite Me is the third book in Mike Faricy’s “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series, which consists of 26 books, and which I think is a completed series.  The books are quick and easy reads, highly entertaining but not to be taken seriously, and fast-paced with lots of plot twists.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV (Dev’s), and the 326 pages are divvied up into 67 chapters, which works out to an average of less than five pages per chapter.  You won’t have any trouble finding a good place to stop reading for the night.  There are lots of “adult situations”, a smidgen of kinkiness, and more than one murder, and although this all takes place offstage, by no means would I call it a cozy mystery.  The story, and I suspect, the whole series, is set in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

    I read the second book in the series, Mr. Swirlee, a few months back, it is reviewed here.  Mike Faricy seems to adhere to a plot-development formula, so most of my comments there also apply here.  Dev Haskell is a charismatic antihero who reminds me of Bruce Willis’s role in the old TV series “Moonlighting”.  There’s lots of action, but not a lot of depth.  It’s not really a whodunit, instead it’s a matter of figuring out how Dev is going to get out of the mess he quickly finds himself in.

 

    I laughed at Dev’s cellphone skills, or lack thereof, they’re similar to mine.  He can make and receive calls on it, but that’s about it.  The running gag of everyone mispronouncing his name continues here, and I still chuckle every time.  The use of the insult “numb nuts” also amuses me; that’s my favorite putdown term.  The title stems from one of the many charges that the police bring upon Dev.  And one of the new characters, a lawyer dubbed "Louie the Lout", will have a recurring role, which is great to hear since I took an instant shine to him.

 

    The ending is akin to that of Mr. Swirlee: Dev succeeds in clearing himself of all of the charges except one, and that one’s only a misdemeanor.  Once again, some, but not all, of the baddies, get their just desserts.  By the last page, it’s pretty clear that Dev has figured out all the shenanigans going on, but things close with no arrests having been made.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.5/5 based on 549 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.41/5 based on 947 ratings and 120 reviews

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “Gorgeous, Asian, sexy, gave you the oral treatment yesterday and then something to suck on.”  (loc. 8907)

 

Excerpts...

    I was trying to remember something, anything from the night before and failing miserably, when there was a knock on the bathroom door.  God, the poor thing was probably bringing me coffee.

    “Momentito, my precious,” I called, trying to be funny.

    I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel and wiped my face, then went to open the door, thinking I may have really misjudged her.  Amazing how sometimes you can get off on the wrong foot.

    “Hey, gorgeous.  You’ve got…”

    The jolt from the officer’s Taser knocked me to the floor.  Writhing around on a wet, ceramic tile floor in electronic shock as thousands of volts jolted through my body did nothing to help my hangover.  (loc. 8473)

 

    “This is why you pay me, so listen up. Continue investigating, online.  Stay away from Farrell Earley and his sister, or wife, or ex-wife, Kiki, whatever in the hell she is.  Just stay away from her.  Your job, and I know it’s tough, but your job is to look like a model citizen right now.  Try and fool everyone into thinking you’re a decent guy.  Got it?”

    “I’m not sure I can pull that off.”

    “Humor me.”  (loc. 9379)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bite Me is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now, same as the other 25 books in this series, with the exception of Book 12, Dog Gone, which is temporarily discounted to $0.99.  You can also buy the first seven books bundled together for a mere $9.99, which is the format in which I read Bite Me.

 

“I’ve never spent the night with a woman who kept a knife under her pillow.”  (loc. 7199)

    There’s not a lot to carp about in Bite Me, provided you aren’t a prude or a right-wing fanatic.

 

    Once again, Dev’s amorous adventures with just about every comely female character resulted in some low ratings at Amazon and Goodreads.  The point is valid, but Ian Fleming’s sleuth James Bond did the same thing.  The main difference between 007 and Dev is that here, most of the female characters here are successfully playing Dev for a sucker.

 

    There is a slew of cussing, 56 instances in the first quarter of the book, so if you were hoping for a cozy mystery, you’ll be disappointed.

 

    And yes, the story is formulaic, but I kinda like the formula.  We’ll see if that feeling lasts for another 23 books, but for now, Bite Me kept me turning the pages and staying up past my bedtime.  The earlier remarks about the ending notwithstanding, Bite Me is a standalone and completed story, and I think I can now say that you don’t have to read these 26 tales in strict order, even though I'm doing that.

 

    7½ Stars.  One final tip.  In the Amazon blurb for Bite Me, there is a short “From The Author” section, which I found to be positively enlightening.  If you want some insight into Mike Faricy’s writing process, be sure to check it out.

Mr. Swirlee - Mike Faricy

   2011; 297 pages.  Book 2 (out of 26) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Crime Thriller; Murder-Mystery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Somebody just tried to kill Mr. Swirlee!

 

    Well, at least he’s convinced of that, and wants Private Investigator Dev Haskell to figure out who it was.  Whoever it was rammed Mr. Swirlee’s car with their own, then fled the scene when the murder attempt failed.    However, Dev is not so sure it wasn’t just a hit-and-run fender-bender.  But hey, a job’s a job, so he dutifully looks into it.

 

    There’s certainly no shortage of people who think Weldon Swirlmann, Mr. Swirlee’s real name, is a royal butthead.  He’s a ruthless businessman and has a virtual monopoly on the neighborhood ice cream truck business for most of St. Paul, Minnesota.  But finding a motive is a lot harder; people may dislike Mr. Swirlmann, but nobody seems likely to gain financially by offing him.

 

    Perhaps it was Mr. Swirlee’s small-time business competition, “The Giant Scoop Ice Cream Company”.  Maybe one or both of the two cute sisters who try to keep their meager fleet of ice cream trucks running is the culprit.  But when their business burns down, it kind of eliminates them as suspects, and Dev has to admit that misfortunes hitting two ice dream truck companies at almost the same time seems like more than a coincidence.  

 

    So you better find a suspect soon, Dev.  Mr. Swirlee doesn’t buy into your hit-and-run theory, and he’s one of those guys who believes that if you’re a PI and you don’t come up with a perpetrator, you don’t get paid.

 

What’s To Like...

    Mr Swirlee is a fast, easy read with interesting characters and lots of action, sleuthing, and intrigue throughout the story.  It is Book Two in Mike Faricy’s Dev Haskell – Private Investigator series.  Book One, Russian Roulette, is the only other one I’ve read so far, and is reviewed here.  The author writes in “storytelling” style, aka “plot-driven”, with an emphasis on keeping the plotlines developing at a rapid pace without slowing things down with stuff like in-depth character studies. 

 

    Unsurprisingly, the initial, straightforward plotline (was it a hit-and-run or attempted murder?) quickly becomes a lot more complex.  Potential suspects keep turning up dead, Mr Swirlee’s ice cream trucks seem to be moonlighting at night, and after due consideration, the St. Paul police declare Dev to be a "person-of-interest" because his car stinks.

 

    Dev Haskell makes for a great anti-hero.  He drinks a lot and can’t look at any girl he meets without thinking about taking her to bed.  Some reviewers find this off-putting, but it reminded me of 50’s-era pulp crime fiction.  There are a couple of nice “whodunit” plot twists along the way to keep you on your toes, and with 72 chapters covering 297 pages, there’s always a convenient place to stop reading for the night.

 

    The ending is both hard-boiled and a bit weird.  It doesn’t address the “whodunit” aspect of the story so much as the “how are we going to resolve this” slant.  Not all of the plot threads get tied up, yet the tale somehow achieves a “finished” feel to it.  Mr. Swirlee is a standalone novel as well as part of a 26-book series.  The author notes that the books don’t need to be read in order, and based on the two I’ve read so far, I agree.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.9/5 based on 475 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.62/5 based on 953 ratings and 101 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Detective Manning, Dev Haskell.”

    “I can see that.”

    “Any progress on Bernie Sneen?”

    “I really don’t care to comment about an ongoing investigation.”

    “I might have something for you.”

    “Such as?”

    “You interested in trading a little information?”

    “Are you interested in being held without bail?”  (loc. 5239)

 

    “So how’d it go?”

    “I don’t know.  I guess I sort of expected him to slap me on the back and say, ‘Thanks, we’ll take it from here.’  Instead, he told me it would be best for the authorities to proceed and let justice take its course.”

    “He actually said that, the justice part?”

    “Yep.”

    “You know, I just think it might be a good idea if a lot of people see you in a public place tonight.”

    “What?”

    “Alibi.”  (loc. 7023)

 

Kindle Details…

    Mr. Swirlee sells for $3.99 at Amazon, as do the other 25 books in this series.  But you can buy the first seven books bundled together for a mere $9.99, which is what I opted for.  You can pick up the Books 8-14 bundle for the same price.  Mike Faricy also has a 5-volume series called “Hotshot”, which I’ve yet to read, with those books priced in the $0.99 or $3.99 range.

 

“You know, you seem to be developing an incredible knack of associating with people who fall prey to violent deaths.”  (loc. 7034 )

    There are some quibbles, most of which I also had with Book One.

 

    First of all, there’s cussing aplenty.  Chapter One alone has eight instances of it, and there are 71 more chapters similarly cuss-filled.  If that’s too excessive for you, you'll be happy to know that Mike Faricy’s Hotshot series is labeled “Humorous Cozy Mystery Thriller”, and might be more to your tastes.

 

    Also, the “whodunit” angles of the assorted slayings are once again not fully tied up.  Oh, you get some idea of who the perpetrators are, but there is no “Perry Mason moment” where the killer is presented with irrefutable evidence and makes a full, self-damning confession.  Then again, those courtroom confessions never did seem believable to me, and to be fair, Mike Faricy calls Mr. Swirlee both a Mystery, (which demands a whodunit resolution); and a Thriller (which only requires that the hero live to sleuth another day).  Perhaps I need to read this series for the thrills, not the murder-solving.

 

    8 Stars.  Same as I gave Russian Roulette.  Subtract ½ Star if you prefer cozy mysteries to gritty ones.  Add ½ Star if you don't care if the murderer isn't revealed, as long as the good guys save the day.