Amazon.com: Bet Your Life (9780099448945): Richard Dooling: Books

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14 Reviews

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4 star:		(2)
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3.2 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Midwest Book Review - noir voice, tidy suspense tale, October 17, 2003

By

Laurel Johnson (Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Bet Your Life (Hardcover)

In Bet Your Life, Richard Dooling spins a tidy mystery suspense tale with twists and turns aplenty. Think Raymond Chandler complete with hi-tech savvy and a contemporary edge. Press releases dub this book "classic noir", and it certainly is that, combined with well-defined characters and an unusual plot

Carver Hartnett is a straight arrow insurance fraud investigator who tells the story in first person. Miranda Pryor is the chaste but seductive object of Carver's desire. And Lenny Stillmach is the friend who manages to be a high tech genius despite manic-depression and chronic drug and alcohol abuse. These three friends comprise the team of fraud investigators who are very good at what they do. Each brings different but effective skills to the team.

Lenny's unexpected death under strange circumstances casts suspicion on his friends. These suspicions are compounded by the discovery that he has purchased multiple six figure life insurance policies naming Carver and Miranda, as well as others, as beneficiaries. Seems that Lenny's boss, the local police, and FBI think he has been running a lucrative scam by buying and selling high dollar policies for fun and profit. Carver can't trust anyone, including Mrianda, and he finds himself up to his eyebrows in a local and federal investigation. His life is in danger and it's up to him to find out why as he tries to separate the good guys from the evil doers.

Richard Dooling is an award nominated author because his wordsmithery is unique. His style is modern with the noir voice of past masters of the genre. Bet Your Life is not a simplistic tale. Intelligent fans of the genre will enjoy the experience.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars slow and convoluted, April 7, 2003

By

eclectictastes "eclectictastes" (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bet Your Life (Hardcover)

Granted, making insurance seem interesting or even exciting takes special skills but this book makes you force yourself to pay attention. Not a good thing. There is nothing particularly interesting about the protagonist Carver Hartnett who pines after his co-worker Miranda for too many pages.

When Lenny, a co-worker of Carver and Miranda who has some risky personal habits, dies under mysterious circumstances, Carver sets to find out what happened. Despite's Dooling's attempts to create witty banter among the friends, I just didn't care enough to know what happened to Lenny who had no apparent traits to justify Carver and Miranda's loyalty to him. In addition, Carver doesn't come off as very bright in many of his actions. It's hard to sympathize with such a character.

Plodding dialogue with occasional religious references also slow the story down. I can't recommend this one.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars what a disappointment!, December 31, 2002

By

"idyllicmorning" (tucson) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bet Your Life (Hardcover)

I'd probably give this just one star if not for the author's proven brilliance with his first two books.

I think that Dooling's efforts to incorporate a relatively large number of characters have backfired... there's no real distinction between most of them, and I didn't find myself giving a damn about any of them.

In the acknowledgments, the author writes:

"I thank (names) - IT cyber wizards one and all - for (...) suggesting ways I could pretend to have more than an amateur's grasp of computer technology."

I think this may be the root of the problem with this book... Dooling's first two novels reflected deep personal experience, and a deep personal understanding of the subject matter at hand.

Unfortunately, this time Dooling is obviously just pretending... he still has only "an amateur's grasp of computer technology", and his efforts to pretend otherwise ruin this as a novel.

And viaticals aren't quite as new or scandalous as the author would have us believe. This novel seems to boil down to: "Man, can you believe there are people out there selling their own life insurance policies?!"

I would like to conclude by suggesting that the editors of this novel don't deserve the author's thanks.

QB

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars So-so
Dooling is a good writer, although he is too fond of mixed and and corny metaphors that feel, say, shoulder to shoulder with the treacly taste of a butterscotch malt on steroids... Read more

Published on February 3, 2010 by Steven V. Owen

5.0 out of 5 stars inventive read
This is a gripping tale, inventively-written in a style like no other and very funny. I instantly gave my copy to a good friend to read when i finished it.

Published on May 20, 2008 by Isabelle Adcock

4.0 out of 5 stars A mystery worth reading
I really liked this story, as it's so rare to be completely in the dark throughout a mystery. Usually you can feel yourself being led in one direction or another, hints are given... Read more

Published on August 30, 2006 by Lesa Evans

2.0 out of 5 stars Kind of a dud
Yeah, it's hard to get really wrapped up in insurance fraud, despite the pretty decent writing... the religious stuff is interesting, and there's a couple of REALLY killer scenes... Read more

Published on February 10, 2003 by Eric Mueller

4.0 out of 5 stars a reader
I could not put this book down. I never thought the insurance industry was fodder for a page-turner crime novel, but I really enjoyed it. Read more

Published on December 30, 2002

2.0 out of 5 stars Dull... Stephen King and NYT are wrong
Stephen King loved this book. I didn't.

While he tries to imbue the insurance and viatical industries with intrigue and give Omaha Nebraska a noir-ish danger, they just... Read more

Published on December 28, 2002 by Otto Zappatore

1.0 out of 5 stars a dud
I liked the two other Dooling books I read, but this one is a dud. The characters are repellent, the plot boring, and the "mystery" uninteresting. Read more

Published on December 23, 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars NY Times is Right !
The NY Times was absolutely right to make "Bet Your Life" a notable for 2002 selection. Heads up to film noir and mystery lovers: This book is a MUST read.

Published on December 9, 2002 by J. D. Fogarty

5.0 out of 5 stars Bet On Dooling
Doolings new book continues to display his imagination, intelligence and gift for making the seemingly mundane (an insurance company fraud division in *yawn* Omaha Nebraska)... Read more

Published on December 5, 2002

2.0 out of 5 stars perhaps the worst novel by one of today's best writers
Many of the people purchasing this book at this stage in its cycle are fans of Dooling's previous novels, and like myself, would probably buy the book regardless of what reviews... Read more

Published on December 2, 2002

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
IN MY LINE OF WORK, we cal it the f-word. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
contestability period, regional investigator, auditor number, viatical companies, viatical company, varmint rifle, life insurance claims, pst file, pill vials, perpetual light shine, web cam, home machine

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Heartland Viatical, Old Man Norton, Leonard Stillmach, Special Investigations, Hector Crogan, Omaha Beneficial, Miranda Pryor, Reliable Allied Trust, Rosa Prescott, Dead Man Norton, Father Fogarty, Mohammed Bilko, Fraud Defense Network, Lenny Stillmach, Nub City, Raymond Guttman, Charlie Becker, Viatical Fraud Task Force, Carver Hartnett, Mutual of Omaha, Tarlon Ashwater, Web Cam Commander, Guaranteed Investment Mutual Trust, Pacific Altruistic, Razer Boomslang

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