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.
No comments:
Post a Comment