Detective Fiction (Murder
Mystery)
By William Wells
ISBN #978-1579624316
Price $28.00
224 Pages
Rating 3-Stars
“Excellent Writing.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A big city
homicide detective retires to Florida, buys a bar, lives on a boat, and has a
beautiful sexy woman jumping into his bed. The local police run into a murder
they can’t solve, and naturally call on him to solve the case for them. I think
everyone who retires to Florida decides to write a murder mystery and use that
plot. I’m almost to the point of passing on any mystery set in Florida.
Thankfully, this one does take a nice twist about half way into the novel, by the
time I think I have it all figured out, and the plot moves in an unexpected
direction.
Retired Chicago homicide detective Jack Starkey has
moved to Florida, opened The Drunken Parrot bar, lives on his boat, where his
girlfriend Marisa Fernandez de Lopez joins him most nights. His close pal,
Clarence “cubby” Cullen, the local chief of police, is also a retired cop from
another big city (New York, New Jersey, who cares?). He tells Jack that the
police chief in Naples would like to speak with him. In Naples, Jack finds Wade
Hansen, another ex-big city cop (I don’t pay any attention to the cities any
more) working as the local police chief. He tells Jack the mayor wishes to hire
him as an advisor on a case of suspicious deaths.
As a civilian advisor, Jack seems to have a free hand
to do whatever he wants. Unfortunately, the story is slow, and we learn more
about what millionaires and billionaires eat in Florida, while Jack drives
around in fancy cars and looks good. An interesting side to the story is Jack’s
friend, author Bill Stevens, who is turning Jack’s old cases into novels, with
names changed of course. We are treated to Jack’s alter ego in the fiction
novel as he works the case.
There was a nice twist about half way in the book, but
all it did was remove one suspect. The writing was excellent, though the story
moved at a terribly slow pace. Plus, the author makes some bad mistakes that
jumped at me. His main character was a marine lieutenant, and we read this on
Page 86: “I did a tour as an officer in the Marine Corps.” Now back on Page 17
we read: “…while all I got as a marine lieutenant were the usual sharpshooter’s
and good conduct medals, plus a Purple Heart.”
Commissioned officers do not get the good conduct medal; it’s only given
to enlisted men, and after a period of three years being good. With a tour in
the marines (3 or 4 years, most likely), there is no mention of him serving as
an enlisted man.
Spoiler alert. If you’re planning on reading this
book, you should skip this paragraph. The villains of the novel are three millionaires
(actually, one is a billionaire). Jack pairs up with a Russian Mafia boss (the
first suspect), and they send two Russian triggermen after the bad guys. They
kidnap the villains; carry them to a hideaway, where Jack uses his skill as a
police interrogator to pry confessions out of them. Good job for a mere
advisor, and we know their lawyers won’t sue the Naples police and government
body for kidnapping and false imprisonment by the hired advisor and his Russian
partner, don’t we? Then they set up the villains’ hit man, and one of the
Russians blows his head off. This is all done with the authority of the mayor’s
office and the police department. Oh, the villains walk with a stern warning
not to have anyone else killed. I guess that’s to keep them from a lawsuit.
I’ve really been disappointed in some releases from
Permanent Press lately. Some have left me cold, and it’s discouraging to read
books like this. I can’t honestly recommend this one to mystery fans.
Tom Johnson
Detective Mystery Stories
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