Customer Reviews

American Quartet

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2 star:		(1)
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This is the book that got me hooked on the stories of Fiona FitzGerald, Warren Adler's woman D.C. homicide detective. There is not much mystery here since the killer is made known early in the book. However, it's a great story that uses bits of Washingtonian history into its well-constructed plot. I highly recommend it.

I have a mixed opinion on American Quartet, which I downloaded as an ebook from SonyStore. I couldn't put it down. I liked the lead a lot, policewoman Fiona, her grit, doubts, self-anger, insightful brilliance and humanity. If she weren't an invention I'd take her on a date. Writer Warren Adler returns to her over and over.

But Fiona's (almost) the only likeable character and only true human. Pretty much everyone else has no depth and they certainly have no redeeming value. All the other leads are men, self-involved Fiona-using men, and I wouldn't have missed any of them if the writer had offed them all: her boss, her lover, her two partners, the politicians. Maybe you think a book like this just is what it is, but look at "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" or my beach book last summer "The Thorn Birds". Even brief characters can have a life to them.

The book was first published almost 30 years ago, and it shows it in the clumsy way the story depicts the many black characters and race relations. It feels pre-Roots. It feels like a blaxploitation movie. It's certainly pre-Cosby. Anyway its handling is crude and false.

It's also odd to see the one-woman-on-the-force set-up. There's value in seeing the hatred and humiliation the early policewomen had to live with and endure back in the day. But still.

But fortunately the story still works because it has Fiona. It's fun and moves along at a good clip. I look forward to reading the rest.

The full list of Fiona FitzGerald mysteries:
AMERICAN QUARTET (March 1982)
AMERICAN SEXTET (December 1982)
IMMACULATE DECEPTION (February 1991)
SENATOR LOVE (August 1991)
THE WITCH OF WATERGATE (August 1992)
THE TIES THAT BIND (May 1994)
DEATH OF A WASHINGTON MADAME (Sept 2005)

"American Quartet" is the first of the Fiona Fitzgerald mysteries, and while Fiona is a great character, this is not a good novel. The Quartet in question are the 4 Presidents that were assassinated. Apparently, someone is copying their murders, and it is up to Fiona to stop him before he gets to the fourth, and biggest killing in the Quartet. Over-the-top, with villain who ejaculates with holding a gun.