Yellow Ribbon - Mike Faricy

    2015; 207 pages.  Book 11 (out of 30) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Airport/Beach Read; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating: 5*/10.

 

    Being a Private Investigator is a high-tension job.  Just ask Dev Haskell.  Sometimes you just gotta do something low-stress.  Like baby-sitting.  Which is what he’s doing now.

 

    He’s thoroughly enjoying looking after little 4-year-old Ava and 5-year-old Emma (or is it the other way around?), daughters of a friend of his, Isabella.  Dev’s even doing this for gratis.

 

    It’s a pity the doorbell had to ring.  It’s a pity that Isabella’s ex-boyfriend, Carlos, is doing the ringing, and is in a foul mood.  It’s a pity that . . . well, what happened next is a bit unclear.

 

    All Dev knows is he got beaten unconscious in front of the two girls.  And got punched often enough in the face for everyone who sees him for quite some time is going to remark that he “looks like sh*t”.

 

What’s To Like...

    Yellow Ribbon is the Book Eleven in Mike Faricy’s Dev Haskell - Private Investigator series.  Thus far, I’ve been reading them in order.  The tale is told in the first-person Point of View, Dev’s, and the setting is the greater St. Paul, Minnesota area.

 

    The action starts right away; the above introduction recaps the first chapter.  My favorite character, Louie the Lawyer, sits this one out, but the two baddies, Fat Freddy Zimmerman and Tubby Gustafson, get larger-than-normal roles.

 

   The tone of the text is darker than usual.  Normally Dev is up to his ears in chasing hot chicks and making snarky wisecracks.  Here, his main feminine companionship is two very scared little girls and the sassing is scaled back significantly.

 

    The main storyline is Dev’s efforts to solve two challenges: rescue Emma and Ava, and recover some stolen money (see second excerpt, below).  The ending addresses both of those tasks, albeit in a not very exciting way and via some very convenient timing.  Things close with a very heartwarming Epilogue.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 868 ratings and 170 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.89/5 based on 612 ratings and 51 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    For the first time, I realized Rikki was wearing a red-sequined thong and a frown.  She had what looked like hummingbirds in flight tattooed on either hip.  A blue stone pierced her navel which was surrounded by tattooed flower petals.  Deep ponds of mascara added a good twenty years to her face.

    She seemed oblivious to her almost complete lack of clothing, and she struck a defiant pose by placing her hands on her hips and thrusting her chest out.  Either that or she was showing off an estimated three grand worth of breast enhancement work.  She stared at me without blinking.  (pg. 93)

 

    “They banned me from the roulette wheel and then the blackjack tables.  So much for nice customer service.

    “Anyway, I just wanted another drink, and this chick was doing nothing but b*tching, so I figured, screw this, and I just left.  Who’d hang around for more of that?  I sure as h*ll don’t need that kind of sh*t.  On the way out, I stopped by the cashiers’ window, and they were doing a shift change or something, not paying too much attention, and so I just helped myself.”

   “You mean, you robbed them?”

    “I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”  (pg. 155)

 

Kindle Details…

    Yellow Ribbon is currently priced at $5.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series cost anywhere from  $0.99 to $5.99, with the majority going for the higher price.

 

“We sailed down the road doing our best not to listen to idiot Carlos as he forever destroyed any positive thoughts we may have had regarding Frosty the Snowman.”  (pg. 143)

    The profanity in Yellow Ribbon is moderate; I noted 14 instances in the first 10% of the book, most of which were of the milder, 4-lettered ilk.  A couple of f-bombs show up later, plus one sex toy.  All in all this felt pretty clean for a Dev Haskell story.

 

    There were a bunch of typos, most of which involved punctuation gaffes: missing commas, how to handle multiple paragraphs of the same person speaking, and unneeded apostrophes denoting plurals.  This is par for the course for this series.  Also, one plot thread is left dangling—the whereabouts of one of the main characters.  Perhaps this will be resolved in the next book Dog Gone.

 

    For me, the big disappointment was the storytelling itself.  There is zero plot progression for the majority of the book.  We drive around, in various vehicles, and listen to Dev try to talk his way, and the two girls’ out of their captive predicament.  This might have been okay if the text were loaded with sparkling wit.  Instead, we, and Dev, are merely treated to person after person commenting on how crappy Dev looks.

 

    The big question now is whether Yellow Ribbon signals a shift in tone for the rest of the series.  The sequel, Dog Gone, is on my Kindle.  Here’s hoping it returns to the tried-and-true formula Mike Faricy has used to chronicle Dev’s misadventures.

 

    5 Stars.  One last thing.  I enjoyed learning an acronym that apparently is commonly used in police radio communications: BOLO.  It means “Be On The Lookout” for something or someone.