| List Price: | |
| Price: | $3.74 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details... |
| You Save: | $0.00(0.00%) |
| Binding: | Kindle Edition |
| EAN: | |
| Feature: | |
| Label: | AmazonEncore |
| Publisher: | AmazonEncore |
| Studio: | AmazonEncore |
| Tags: |
Editorial Reviews
Jim Snow and his sister Karen have never been very close. In fact, they haven’t seen each other since their mother’s funeral two years ago, despite living just three miles apart. But then Snow gets a panicked phone call from Karen telling him that her estranged husband has been murdered and she is the number-one suspect. Snow agrees to help, seeing as he’s the only family she has left. Plus he is a Las Vegas homicide detective—or at least, he was until he quit the force to become a full-time poker player. But while his crime-fighting skills may be a little rusty, even he has to admit Karen is a likely suspect. She stands to collect on her dead husband’s life insurance, which is quite the coincidence considering she’s been living on her first two husbands’ insurance for years. Snow isn’t sure whether or not his sister is innocent, and there’s only one way to find out. He joins forces with feisty cocktail waitress-turned-cop Alice James and together they set out amidst the glittering lights of Vegas to solve this witty and entertaining whodunit.
Related Reviews
3 1/2 Stars from "Red Adept Reviews"
Share your thoughts with other customers
Create your own review
Create your own review
The plot was not particularly original. A man is killed, the police think the wife and/or her lover did the deed, so the wife asks her estranged brother, who used to be a police officer, to investigate. One original component is the method of the murder; another is that the brother, Jim Snow, is now a professional poker player.
There were a few things that I found highly improbable about the storyline. They weren't quite "holes", just things that were hard to believe.
One occured in the beginning when Jim contacted the detectives working the case. The detectives were a male/female team, and Jim knew the male from when he worked on the force. Both detectives spill their guts about the case, even though Jim's sister and her presumed lover are the prime suspects. I could not imagine police officers doing this unless maybe they were really good friends with Jim, but one was an acquaintance, and he didn't even know the female.
Also, at that same meeting, the instant the male cop stepped away to take a phone call, the female cop starts complaining to Jim about her partner. I read that thinking, "WHAT?! She doesn't even know anything about this guy, except that his sister is a murder suspect and that he once worked with the partner she was complaining about."
Another issue was that the police assumed that the victim knew the killer, actually, they insisted on it and centered their entire investigation around it. They would not even consider that someone just took the victim by surprise. Also, when someone calls in to say that they just happened to drive by the murder weapon and pointed them to it, no one investigating the case even thinks that only the murderer would do such a thing or would have noticed a small tool laying by the side of the road and connected it to the murder.
Those small "iffy" things did not spoil the entire story. The rest of the storyline was interesting. The `side stories' were filled with imaginative events. The novel also had a satisfying, twisty, believable ending.
Character Development: 3 Stars
The author attempts to develop every character in the novel with long, drawn-out back stories from everyone. The stories were interesting; however, I found it very difficult to believe that every person Jim met would just spill their life story immediately. But, that's what happened. He would meet them and ask them some small question, like "What kind of work do you do?", and they would go into a long tale about what they do and why.
Jim Snow, even though he was the main character, was still the least developed one. We learn a little about his life, but never really get a feel for him or his emotions. He could have gotten shot during the story, and I would have had trouble caring.
I found Alice, the female detective, to be annoying, spoiled, and rather snotty. She was not very well developed as we learn virtually nothing about her, other than she is being sexually harrassed at work. I think there were supposed to be some `sparks' between her and Jim, but she just came across as `slutty.'
Writing Style: 3 1/2 Stars
I think Mr. Kusler took a Creative Writing teacher's words way too much to heart when one told him to describe everything. That's what he does, he described virtually everything down to the smallest detail. When Jim walked into a room, I learned the color and style of every stick of furniture, the color and maker of every electronic, and the color and style of the clothing of every person in the room. Yes, it was a bit overdone.
Another issue was viewpoint. Most of the story was told in third person from Jim's perspective. However, right in the middle, Mr. Kusler throws in a chapter from the female cop's viewpoint. He adds one or two more later from her viewpoint, but all of these chapters seemed contrived.
The sentence structuring made for a nice flow in the story. Regardless of the extraneous information, the overall writing was nice.
Editing/Formatting: 4 Stars
There were a few editing errors, mostly missing words. Once, during a hypothetical conversation, Jim decided that a dead man was going to propose, i.e., the wrong name was used.