Tag Archives: hardcover

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

The Closet Hanging by Tony Fennelly (1987) – BR00068 (1998) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
July 4 1998

Plot or Premise

The supposed suicide of a land developer is complicated by some details that suggest murder, and spells trouble for Sinclair since he was recently seen having a large argument with the deceased. Unfortunately for Matt, he can’t remember the details because they have been wiped out by an epileptic seizure and the developer is found in a building owned by Matt’s mother. Matt investigates, partly to find out for himself what really happened.

What I Liked

Better written than the first one, including a much better quality of appropriate humour and the extra characters from the mob are well done, adding some interesting albeit tiny twists.

What I Didn’t Like

Slightly more graphic than the first, the plot is somewhat convoluted, and there is too much attention paid to Matt’s personal life which is too far removed from the mystery. The ending is rather disappointing from such a good writer.

Disclosure

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

The Bottom Line

Great writing and fast-paced story

1-900-DEAD by Tony Fennelly (1996) – BR00070 (1998) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
July 4 1998

Plot or Premise

Margo Fortier, gossip columnist and snoop extraordinaire, knows a recent murder victim, thus giving Margo another shot to write some real news. The victim was a fake psychic that Margo met in astrology class.

What I Liked

Margo’s relationship with Julian is refreshingly moved out of the house and into the outside world as Julian chauffeurs her around. I liked the novel despite the fact that I didn’t particularly care who-did-it, mostly because the behind-the-scenes look at the world of the psychics is so well done and interesting. There’s a cute little twist at the end as well. I also loved numerous little quotes that made me laugh out loud.

What I Didn’t Like

The plot is a little confusing at times trying to keep all the characters straight (no pun intended).

Disclosure

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

The Bottom Line

Well-written.

The Staked Goat by Jeremiah Healy (1986) – BR00037 (1998) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
June 21 1998

Plot or Premise

John Cuddy is a former insurance investigator who lost his job when he started drinking too much following the death of his wife to cancer. A friend from Vietnam calls him up unexpectedly while visiting Boston, arranges to meet him for dinner and drinks, and misses the date only to show up dead the next morning. Cuddy smells a rat in the official story and sets out to help clear his friend’s name and help his family.

What I Liked

Well, I was supposed to be studying French today. I even promised myself I would spend the evening doing that. Then I made the mistake of wandering over to a bookstore and looking through the Mystery section to see if there was anything that leaped off the shelves at me. Jeremiah Healy’s “The Staked Goat” was feeling particularly restless and somehow not only forced itself off the shelf and into my hands, but also managed to take hold of my wallet and steer me to the register. That was, I think, somewhere around 5:00 p.m. Except for the time on the way to the diner and the time to walk home, I’ve been subjecting myself to the simply wonderful story contained within its covers ever since. I’m almost tempted to read it again over the next few days, s l o w l y this time, to see if there is anything I missed, and if not, just to savour it a while longer. In any event, a very enjoyable four hours.

I liked the very realistic portrayal of the friends — biting their tongues when they used idioms (“dead to the world”, etc), laughing occasionally, etc. But regardless of the fast-paced action after the visit to Pittsburgh, the part I loved the best was the portrayal of the gay couple. I lived with a gay male couple with about the same age discrepancy, who had been together for nineteen years, and it seemed like I was back in their kitchen having breakfast when I was reading the story.

What I Didn’t Like

I did wonder about the accuracy of some of the details surrounding “sitting shiva” for Al (i.e., a funeral on Saturday? Jewish Sabbath? I didn’t think that was kosher, no pun intended). But it did say at the start that Al didn’t go very often — hope that wasn’t a cop-out…could’ve been an interesting sub-area.

The Bottom Line

I was only going to read a little — and lost an entire evening!

The Hippie in the Wall by Tony Fennelly (1994) – BR00069 (1998) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
June 4 1998

Plot or Premise

Margo Fortier is a gossip columnist who longs to write real news. Her first break pops when a hippie corpse from 20 years before is pulled out of a wall of a bar she worked at when she was young but far from innocent. Since she knows all the players from the time, she helps investigate along with the cop from the Sinclair novels.

What I Liked

A decent portrayal of characters who happen to be gay as opposed to caricatures of gay people, and the story never drags. The ending is nicely done as well.

What I Didn’t Like

More careful attention could have been paid to the real plot, as it is sometimes convoluted and hard to keep track of all the characters. Readers are also expected to believe that the main seven characters all still live in New Orleans twenty years later, even though they were all transiting through New Orleans 20 years before. Finally, Margo is a little too smug perhaps in the way she handles her first killer, one who has already killed two people.

Disclosure

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

The Bottom Line

Decent story