Tag Archives: crime

Hot Wheels by William Arden (1989) – BR00085 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

The Three Investigators series that I loved as a kid was transformed some years ago into this new Crimebusters series that I could never find in stores. The stories are aimed at young adults, but I was expecting the stories to have relatively the same type of stories that I fell in love with as a kid. Wrong. Instead, they have updated their ages from 14 to 17, updated their lifestyles from chores and bicycles to part-time jobs and cars. And thrown in lots of women to entice their hormonally-charged bodies. In short, the characters have grown up but not necessarily in keeping with the personalities they had originally. In this story, the 3Is are helping their cousin who has been charged with grand theft auto.

What I Liked

Jupe, Bob and Pete juggle the case, their jobs, and their social life to stay on top of things. In the old series, most of the time the characters were all together, or were working on different parts at the same time. In the new update, lots of other things interfere in their lives (a little more realistic, but less enjoyable). Yet Jupiter Jones is still the leader who relies on his brains more than his brawn.

What I Didn’t Like

The biggest fault is that the authors have added an action element to the series. Kind of like some of the false notes that appear in other series, the characters in this series have increased their physical fitness with karate and judo. So, eventually, there is a fight scene complete with big thugs and guns.

The Bottom Line

Same series, similar concept, same names, but different characters.

Night Passage by Robert B. Parker (1997) – BR00083 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

This is the first one in the Jesse Stone series. Jesse is a washed-up homicide detective from L.A. who climbed into a bottle and lost his wife to a L.A. player. But a small town in Massachusetts called Paradise recruits him as their new police chief…and Jesse jumps at it to save his own life.

What I Liked

Things are not as they appear in Paradise because the town leader has started his own little militia designed to fight back when the eventual downfall of America occurs. The previous chief of police has been sent packing and the town council wants someone they can control. Unfortunately, Jesse isn’t it. The focus of this first story is on Jesse getting sober, finding out what really happened to the last chief, finding out what is going on in Paradise with the town leader, and when he has time, figuring out what’s going on in his personal life. A refreshing change from the Spenser series because there is no Hawk and there is no Susan to back him up, there’s just him.

What I Didn’t Like

Vinnie and Joe from the Spenser series show up, but are more for comic relief than anything. Stone’s ex-wife and new girlfriend are more co-dependant than helpful.

The Bottom Line

Decent start to a new Parkers series.

The Face-Changers by Thomas Perry (1998) – BR00081 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

Jane Whitefield is back, and she is trying to live up to her promise to her husband to not help any more fugitives to disappear. But then her husband brings her a Richard-Kimble-like friend who has been framed for the murder of his research assistant, and he can’t even blame a one-armed man. Her husband asks her to help because the friend is his old mentor.

What I Liked

The story expands outward pretty fast, as Jane discovers that other people have been using her identity and reputation to “help” people for profit, in some cases where the people didn’t need any help but were scared into thinking they did. Basically to create the demand for the service they can provide. So Jane has to figure that part out too, or she’ll never be able to save anyone else again, let alone her husband’s friend. Added to the mix is an FBI agent who wants to know what is going on, and knows Jane has the answers — and he’s willing to arrest her to find out. Aiding a fugitive is just the first charge of many he has in mind. Plus, just for fun, her husband is being hit on by one of the bad guys.

What I Didn’t Like

It’s a little hard to follow at times as she criss-crosses the U.S., and some of the sub-stories are a little over-developed.

The Bottom Line

Solid novel.

Extreme Justice by William Bernhardt (1998) – BR00078 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

In the seventh in the series, lawyer Ben Kincaid has become disillusioned so he runs away from the law and takes up jazz music full-time. When a body shows up on stage (literally falling on Ben), Ben has to step up as a lawyer again to save the owner of the club who has been framed for the murder. Working against the owner and against Ben is the fact that the owner served time for the murder of someone else from the old days, a friend of the owner — and an old friend of the new victim! A few too many links and the police think they have their man. Ben wants to see justice done, but his return to the law is only temporary, supposedly.

What I Liked

The story-telling is first-rate, and the mystery aspects of it become almost secondary. Loving, Jones and Christina are all back on the scene, and you get to see one sub-mystery involving Christina.

What I Didn’t Like

Everyone is impatient with Ben and keeps telling him to wake up and realize who he is (a lawyer, not a jazz music) and the constant angst grates on the nerves. Loving and Jones don’t have much to do, and Christina’s mystery drops several GIANT clues that Ben doesn’t see. The ending reads more like an action / movie ending, and all three of the sub-mysteries are easily figured out by the reader well before they are unveiled in the story.

The Bottom Line

Stronger story-telling than mystery.

N is for Noose by Sue Grafton (1998) – BR00077 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

Kinsey Milhone takes a case in a small town. Dead is a cop, apparently of a heart attack. But his wife, unloved by the community and perhaps deservedly so, knows that something had been bothering her husband before he died, and now she wants to know what, for her own peace of mind. So she hires Kinsey to find out what was going on, but not everyone shares the wife’s desire to know. Kinsey finds out relatively quickly that the cop had been investigating a year-old murder case, that originally looked like a suicide by hanging (hence the title). However, the method of suicide exactly matched another case, so he knew it wasn’t suicide — hence an investigation that had been going nowhere. Worse still, the only suspects were in the small town, and most of them were friends. Kinsey searches, finds the original path of inquiry and starts digging. In the process, she gets beat up, warned off, almost fired, belittled by her client, and pretty much treated badly by everyone in the town when they find out she isn’t the innocent little camper people mistook her for at the beginning.

What I Liked

The story is pretty linear, although Grafton takes her own sweet time bringing Kinsey to see it. There’s a short intro to some problems with Rosey back home, obviously something to come up again in a later book, but most of it is just Kinsey alone in the small town getting nowhere. Once she cottons on to the real path, the investigation is pretty straight-forward, but she doesn’t see the result until it is almost too late. There’s some really weird stuff at the end to do with some drugged-out hallucinations, and it makes for an interesting incapacitation plotline.

What I Didn’t Like

Grafton takes a little too long to get to the investigation, almost like the story started out as a short story, with all the stuff at the start added to expand the length. Although the tightness of the ending makes the story move along, it all wrapped up too quickly.

The Bottom Line

Solid entry, a different location than most of the stories.