Customer Reviews

The Blue-Haired Bombshell

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

More inspiration to stop reading the series, unfortunately.

I almost enjoyed the book, but not quite. Once again, a great setting, wonderful characters, and a plot that can't hold up to much inquiry.

The new gun was interesting -- but annoying. Maybe in the future EVERYTHING will talk and have a personality, but for me, HARV is enough human/machine conversation for a hard-edged detective of few words.

Felt like moving from a novel genre to watching a video game.

Again, would make a great movie. Very visually written.

These books deserve a little more focus on PLOT, re-examination of RESTRAINT by the writer, and stay ON GENRE.

And thank you for your work. I am a fan, albeit I'm growing disappointed w/this series.

Private Detective Zach Johnson finds himself in the middle of a political battle between the Moonies and Earth. And the people from the moon are willing to do anything to win their freedom from Earth, including murder. When a young woman from Earth is framed for murdering three of World Council members, Zach follows his suspects to the moon. Zach must hunt down a murderer, while constantly on the lookout for those who want him out of the way.

A wonderful mixture of humor and adventure, this science fiction mystery was a fun treat. And though this is not the first in the series, I didn't have any trouble jumping into the story. The character of Zach Johnson is extremely witty, compassionate, and a glutton for punishment. His AI, HARV, has an extremely sarcastic and arrogant personality which makes him almost Zach's opposite. The rest of the characters are pretty satirical in nature, making for a humorous look into the distant future.

Zakour has done a good job of giving the reader a humorous science fiction novel. What Terry Pratchett has done in using fantasy to satirize culture and the genre of fantasy, Zakour has done with science fiction. While the writing is perhaps not on par with Pratchett, the humor is close. The story is non stop action, as Zach bounces from one near death experience to another, all the while finding the clues that lead to the real culprit. I enjoyed it as great escapism for a cold and yucky Saturday.

[...]

Go for it!! This is a classic Space Opera. Easy to read and fun. You can not go wrong.

This is book 5 for our retro detective, Zachary Nixon Johnson. The moon, under the political leadership of Boris Sputnik, is once again seeking its freedom from Earth rule. As the World Council is set to meet and vote, three of its members (including Sexy Sprockets) are murdered. The mutant bodyguard of Sexy, Shannon Cannon is arrested and makes a plea to Zach to find the real murderer. Thusly, Zach is accompanied as always by supercomputer HARV and his psi secretary Carol as the rocket off to the Moon to find answers to unasked questions. The problem is, the frequency of psionic minded women are of a greater ratio on the Moon and then there are all those gorillas running about. All this and Zach gets a new super gun, GUS, from crazed scientist Randy Pool.

Yet one more welcome addition to the Zach Johnson anthology and hopefully it's not the last. Carol gets a bigger role, HARV seemed a bit out of whack, and GUS has got to go. However, there are numerous editting errors in this printing.

...for John Zakour as it looks like he is getting more comfortable flying solo with Zach Johnson. This book definitely qualifies as "Brain Bubble Gum", but it's fair to say that is the idea. The series trend of each ZNJ adventure being even more outrageous than the previous is sure to buckle under its own weight soon so it will be interesting to see where Zakour goes with it from there. I like the addition of GUS as it gives HARV a sidekick to riff with, often to the chagrin of ZJN, but that in turn is part of the fun. It was also nice to see Carol have more of a key role and added to the "Alas, poor Zach, we all know so much more than you" club. What I really enjoyed were the scenes where Carol, HARV, and GUS are all discussing various elements of Zach's nature, or the like, within his own brain. One can almost here ZJN saying, "Uhm, hello? I'm here too ya' know, and I can hear you!" There were many times I found myself chuckling out loud.

Zakour also does a nice job here calling back to his prior adventures, and in a very subtle manner, breaks the fourth wall once in doing so. Not in a Boston Legal/David E. Kelley subtle, but even more so, which in turn makes you feel like you're in on the joke. Of course, this only applies if you've read the earlier books in this series. If you haven't, you don't necessarily miss anything, but if you have, it makes it all just "that much" more fun.

As in the previous century, being an earthbound politician in 2057 (CHECK date) has always had plenty of rewards with very few negatives. Politicians live on pork refusing to even throw away leftovers. That is until now. Someone obviously has decided to vote politicians out of office using bullets instead of a ballet box.

Private investigator Zachary Johnson believes the killer's motive is tied to a failed movement for independence by the citizens of the moon. Thus he believes the leader of the Moon and the strongest supporter of the free moon scenario Boris Sputnik is behind the killings as he has plenty to gain politically and financially (oxymoron - ever hear of a poverty stricken politician in Congress or the White House) if the earth leaders change their mind. As he probes Sputnik's revolutionary activity, the last private investigator on earth finds his efforts to uncover the identity of the assassin vetoed by bioengineered gorillas and distracted by a sexy Blue-Haired Bombshell.

Zach is back with this amusing satire of Noir fantasy science fiction. As always when Zach works a case, he has a beautiful bombshell with different colored hair to interrupt his whodunit musings with more important matters of a sexual nature. The mystery is fun to follow as Zach deals with elves, goons, Sputnik, politicians, and of course THE BLUE HAIRED BOMBSHELL. John Zakour spoofs the DC insiders with this entertaining outsider futuristic murder mystery.

Harriet Klausner

The Zach Johnson series is for those of us who remember the grand days of pulp fiction in the science fiction and mystery genres. This is not, nor does it aspire to be, literature.

The most preposterous element of these stories is Johnson's survival against beings who are incredibly powerful. Some of it is due to the classic p.i. charm that women find irresistible and the rest due to luck.

After three council members are murdered, including one of the titled characters from a previous book, Zach gets caught up in the squabble between the Moonies and the Earthers. This takes him to the Moon to solve the mystery.

There are some interesting characters in these stories, particularly the A.I. HARV, but rarely are they allowed to develop much past caricatures. Zach's niece Carol is much more interesting than his fiancee. Maybe its her massive psi powers.

Anyway these are fun reads along the order of summertime adventure movies. If you don't look too deep they are very good.

As fun reading, the Zach Johnson stories are just that

First, DON'T read this book without reading the first 4 or you won't get it.
Another adventure with so many twists and turns, you can't put it down!
The whole series is just plain fun reading! You can actually visualize
the action as you read.

Blue-Haired Bombshell is one of the funniest and most enjoyable reads I've had. The protagonist, a detective who--in a world of tiny, computerized weapons--still likes to carry his huge, reassuring gun and favors an old-fashioned Sam Spade fedora is strong, manly and sarcastic while still being a totally endearing and charming character. His relationships with the mega-powerful psychic women all around him could easily have been emasculating (since he essentially has no power to fight them or defend himself) but he somehow talks his way out of just about everything and makes everyone respect him even when he doesn't use his huge, reassuring gun. For the action lovers, there is a great battle at the end with lots of explosions and surprises and snappy one-liners.

Great dialogue, plenty of laugh-out-loud situations, and as funny as a detective parody shouldbe while still providing great plot twists and fully fleshed out characters and setting.