Monthly Archives: February 1999

Taxed to Death by Debra Purdy Kong (1995) – BR00089 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 7 1999

Plot or Premise

A tax auditor discovers fraud, revenge and murder.

What I Liked

The writing is pretty good and I love the premise of the protagonist (a Revenue Canada tax auditor).

What I Didn’t Like

I had difficulty with three things in the book. First, I found there were way too many characters to keep them all straight. Second, I didn’t like the relationship between Alex and Jillian, very hard to follow why this would be a romance that would “bloom”. Third, I just plain don’t like Jillian…the choices she makes, the rationale for her relationships and interactions with men, all of it made me feel like an accomplice to sexism. Altogether, it presented a challenge for realism, but it may also just be my personal preference to not read about a character like Jillian.

Disclosure

I am not personal friends with the author, but I have interacted with them briefly on social media.

The Bottom Line

Could have been better laid out with fewer characters.

Perilous Friends by Carole Epstein (1996) – BR00063 (1999) – 🐸⚪⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 5 1999

Plot or Premise

Barbara Simons is a newly unemployed airline exec with nothing to do. Bored, she jumps at a chance to help her fabulous friends with their problems — an ex-husband hiding money or uncovering a smuggling ring.

What I Liked

Better written than Reichs’ books in the same setting, and the overall story is interesting.

What I Didn’t Like

I hated most of this book — every character is one of life’s beautiful people, all wealthy, all extremely ravishing or handsome, and all amazingly beautiful, perky, effective at turning men’s heads deliberately and/or accidentally, and supposedly downright nice…not nice enough that you like them, but Barbara obviously thinks everyone else does.

But Barbara isn’t any better — she’s supposed to be this amazing go-getter businesswoman but she has been wallowing in self-pity for six weeks. She goes to fancy parties with the elites, but can’t relate to the average guy behind the counter at the 7-11 without going off on some trip. And while the story is interesting, the ending feels like it wraps everything up in a whirlwind 3 pages.

Finally, a small spoiler, there is a small sub-plot that ends on a “to be continued” basis, kind of like Evanovich does regularly with the Stephanie Plum series. I hate that with a passion — I like some resolution, even if there is an ongoing storyline.

Disclosure

I was not personal friends with the author, but I did interact with her briefly on social media.

The Bottom Line

Hate the characters, okay story.

Foul Ball! Five Years in the American League by Alison Gordon (1984) – BR00060 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
February 3 1999

Plot or Premise

The first five years of the Blue Jays, as covered by a female sportswriter.

What I Liked

Many thoughts assailed me. Sure, I had heard she was nice, came from a respectable family, etc., but we had never met before. What if I didn’t like her in *that* way? After all, there’s the question of chemistry. And she’s an older woman. Worldly. Definitely been around the park a few times. And she’s been known to have 9 guys at a time! Not to mention those wild stories of men in kilts. And then there’s my side of things. What if there were things I didn’t know? What were her expectations? After all, I’m not getting any younger, I was never a jock nor even a lay expert in this area, and I’m not very adventurous. Sure there was that fling with Roy McGregor but that was a father and son thing, not a stated preference. These thoughts and others assailed me as I plunged into a SPORTS biography for the first time.

Alison Gordon’s coverage of the first five years of the Blue Jays is great. Not too sporty, so baseball plebes like me (who couldn’t tell you the seven ways to get to first not including a single) can still follow; yet sporty enough so that baseball fans will still enjoy the behind-the-scenes look at the life of the (female) sportswriter and the lives of the Blue Jays. She covers the gamut from players to stadiums, and everything in between.

What I Didn’t Like

In a few places, it seemed a bit superficial, more description than stepping back to analyse her own participation in the stories. Not major, just a small limitation.

Disclosure

I was not personally friends with the author, but I did interact with her online.

The Bottom Line

Quite enjoyable

The Dead Pull Hitter by Alison Gordon (1988) – BR00061 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
February 3 1999

Plot or Premise

Dead Pull Hitter feels like it picks up where Gordon’s non-fiction left off: the Toronto Titans have finished in fourth place the previous year and are starting to pull it together for a pennant race; the protagonist Kate Henry is a woman sportswriter who’s covered them for five years; she works for the Toronto Planet which is sandwiched in the news market between the stodgy World and the bimbette-littered pages of the Mirror. At times it was hard to remind myself that this was the fiction category!

What I Liked

The fun doesn’t really take off until after the first body arrives. Up until then, it is basically a baseball story. After that, the murder mystery takes hold. The clues are there for the finding: some obvious, others more subtle. Nicely written, and combines the baseball storylines with an appropriate emphasis on the mystery. And the cop-as-a-romantic-partner and mystery-antagonist-theme is alive and well in the book.

What I Didn’t Like

The start on the baseball story gives you a fairly large cast of characters that may be easy for a baseball fan to keep straight (i.e. player X is a catcher), but the names all seemed to run together for me. The baseball players also seem to have an enormously large and direct role in Kate’s life, which doesn’t seem to fit with her being a member of the objective sports press that covers them regularly.

Disclosure

I was not personally friends with the author, but I did interact briefly with her online.

The Bottom Line

Nice start to the series