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Tag Archives: prose

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The Knowland Retribution by Richard Greener (2004) – BR00223 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺ

The PolyBlog
May 14 2023

Plot or Premise

Walter Sherman has one unique skill. He can find anything that someone is searching for, which, most of the time, is a person. His nickname is the Locator, which he earned in Vietnam. Now he earns a living doing 5-10 jobs a year when people come to him asking him to find someone. In this first book in the series, a bunch of suits want him to find whoever is killing off the business people who were involved in a tainted meat scandal.

What I Liked

The premise is unique. While lots of series have private investigators who take on cases, including missing person cases, or series with police detectives hunting a serial killer, Walter isn’t any of these things. He only works by referral from someone that he has done work for in the past; he doesn’t advertise, he has no office or website, etc. Finding an anonymous killer? Not something he normally does. But the money is too good to say no, and it seems like the killer is worth catching.

The book series was made into a short-lived TV show (The Finder), with a number of significant changes — they made it that he was injured in Iraq or Afghanistan and can now find things, he’s not living in the US Virgin Islands, but somewhere in Florida, there’s an on-again/off-again love interest who is also a US Marshal, etc.

The business side of the story is pretty well-done, although a couple of the “bad” business guys are a little bit of a clichΓ©. Nevertheless, it has almost an early John Grisham feel to it in places. And the bar near his home, Billy’s bar, with Billy and Ike as his two best friends, is really well done.

What I Didn’t Like

While Walter doesn’t know the identity of the killer, the reader does. And it takes some of the mystery out. Walter is barely present for the first 20% of the book, so it’s pretty heavy on an exposition of additional characters. Plus, while one of the main characters starts to identify with the killer’s sense of “justice,” and you are meant to see the callousness of the original, the vicious deaths that are delivered are only mildly explained. I never felt any sympathy for the killer, and the ending is questionable. There’s also no explanation of how he knows everything he does or how he found it all out; he just shows up, kills someone, and moves on. There’s only one scene where it shows him “stalking” someone, and even that is relatively bland.

However, I think my biggest objections are a love interest that we are told is all about passion but doesn’t seem to really drive any chemistry except in a scene or two, and the original “hook” that gets Walter involved is glossed over. The reader knows they are scummy people, but Walter’s reasons to help are murky at best. Later he reacts as if he was betrayed, but most of what they told him was relatively true — they just didn’t tell him the whole story, and despite being an ace interrogator, he seems surprised to learn other details they hid from him. Yet the story moves along at a good clip, so while I would be tempted to drop it to 3 out of 5, the pace bumps it back to 4.

The Bottom Line

Come for the Locator…who eventually joins the story

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged book review, Good Reads, Locator, prose, series | Leave a reply

Poison Flower by Thomas Perry (2012) – BR00197 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸βšͺβšͺ

The PolyBlog
June 27 2021

Jane breaks an innocent man out of jail but the real criminals grab her and torture her to talk. She doesn’t, of course, which sets off a long series of other events.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, Amazon.ca, B&N, book review, Chapters, e-book, Ebook, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, mystery, mythology, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, Reading Challenge, Savvy Reader, series, suspense, Whitefield (7) | Leave a reply

Runner by Thomas Perry (2009) – BR00196 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸βšͺβšͺ

The PolyBlog
June 25 2021

Jane is retired, ready to give advice if need be to would-be runners looking for her help, but she spends her days being the dutiful supportive wife of her surgeon husband. At a fundraiser for the hospital, a bomb explodes to hide the activities of a group of hunters determined to capture a pregnant girl before she can get to Jane.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, Amazon.ca, B&N, book review, Chapters, e-book, Ebook, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, mystery, mythology, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, Reading Challenge, Savvy Reader, series, suspense, Whitefield (6) | Leave a reply

Shadow Woman by Thomas Perry (1998) – BR00195 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺ

The PolyBlog
June 18 2021

Pete Hatcher works in a Las Vegas casino as a low-level executive. When the big bosses decide maybe he knows something that would interest the Feds, Jane has to help him escape to a new life. But the major complication for Jane is that they hire a couple of pros to find Hatcher.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, Amazon.ca, B&N, book review, Chapters, e-book, Ebook, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, mystery, mythology, Nook, novel, OPL, PolyWogg, prose, Reading Challenge, Savvy Reader, series, suspense, Whitefield (3) | Leave a reply

Dance for the Dead by Thomas Perry (1996) – BR00194 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺ

The PolyBlog
June 10 2021

Jane Whitefield is back and trying to guide an 8-year-old boy with an inheritance and a 30-year-old woman with stolen bank money to a safe haven.

The methodology for how Jane helps everyone is quite good, and reads both simple and plausible, a veneer of realism that sells the stories. The explanations for both cases are relatively clear, you understand the motives and why someone is coming after the two of them. Most of the story is a cat and mouse world, and it works well.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, Amazon.ca, B&N, book review, Chapters, crime, Ebook, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, Library Thing, mystery, mythology, Nook, novel, OPL, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, Reading Challenge, Savvy Reader, series, sleuth, suspense, used, Whitefield (2) | Leave a reply

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My Latest Posts

  • The Lacey Confession by Richard Greener (2006) – BR00224 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺMay 22, 2023
    Plot or Premise When a rich and powerful man dies, leaving behind a lengthy and vengeful document of his life, many powerful forces move to capture the document before the document can be revealed to the public. What I Liked Whereas the first book read almost like a John Grisham novel, this second one seems … Continue reading →
  • The Knowland Retribution by Richard Greener (2004) – BR00223 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺMay 14, 2023
    Plot or Premise Walter Sherman has one unique skill. He can find anything that someone is searching for, which, most of the time, is a person. His nickname is the Locator, which he earned in Vietnam. Now he earns a living doing 5-10 jobs a year when people come to him asking him to find … Continue reading →
  • McNally’s Luck by Lawrence Sanders (1992) – BR00222 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸βšͺβšͺMay 8, 2023
    Plot or Premise What starts as a cat-napping morphs into poison letters, threats and murder. What I Liked There are some decent psychological elements, albeit not well-developed, and a wide cast of characters … a grieving husband vs. a trophy wife who doesn’t care about the cat; a poor poet with a rich wife; and … Continue reading →
  • McNally’s Secret by Lawrence Sanders (1992) – BR00221 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸βšͺMay 7, 2023
    Plot or Premise The book is the first in the Archy McNally series. Archy is the one-man investigations unit in his father’s law firm, handling discreet investigations for Palm Beach’s wealthy locals. One of their clients has been robbed, but she doesn’t want everyone to know. She just wants her stamps back. What I Liked … Continue reading →
  • Taking a day offMay 1, 2023
    I need a mental health day tomorrow (Tuesday). I got overwhelmed today, and I’m really tired. I just don’t have the energy to adult tomorrow. I posted earlier about the progress I thought I was making on the basement. I was ready to spend a bit of time this week testing different setups to finalize … Continue reading →

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