Customer Reviews

The Cleveland Local

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

 

 

Being a native Clevelander, I really appreciate the references to my hometown. I love the character development, he makes you feel as if you know the characters! The plot was convoluted, it kept you guessing. The ending was unexpected.

THE CLEVELAND LOCAL is perhaps the "darkest" of Les Roberts' novels about Cleveland private eye Milan Jacovich. It's about families - that of a young man shot down on a secluded Caribbean beach, of a Holocaust survivor who guards her daughter with Draconian intensity, of Jacovich's own family, the "family" of blue-collar union workers who band together in search of a better life, and the all-important extended family of friendships and loyalties.

The city of Cleveland, with its working-class milieu and its stately mansions and sweeping lawns, comes so vibrantly alive that it's almost one of the characters.

Much has been said of the shocking ending. It is unexpected, sad, and completely unforgettable. Only a writer with Les Roberts' craft, control and confidence could have carried it off. He's at the top of his form here.

This is the first time i have read a book by Les Roberts. Itwas a good book in that I liked the descriptions of Cleveland and it'speoples, and make up. What really turned me off on this book was the motive of the murder. That is not just a solution to a mystery to me.

Les Roberts writes fun mysteries with Cleveland's Milan Jacovich, a Slovenian. The fact that he's Slovenian is a pleasure as they are a lesser well-known ethnic group in this country. Roberts researh is impeccable. His facts on Slovenians, their polkas, and their restaurants and areas in Cleveland are exact. Very enjoyable read for Clevelanders, in particular!

This is the eighth adventure of Milan Jacovich, former Army MP, cop and now a private-eye in Cleveland, Ohio. He also has a personal life, (divorced and father of two boys), which is balanced fairly well in these books, adding some flavor without intruding on the plots. The series consists of straightforward gum shoe mysteries much like the books of Ross MacDonald, Jonathan Valin, Jeremiah Healy and Stephen Greenleaf, i.e. you ride along shotgun with the protagonist as he goes about solving his case, and these are very good for this genre. That being said The Cleveland Local is weakest book so far in the series.

Situated in his brand new downtown office Milan is hired by a woman, frustrated by the lack of progress in the case of her brother who was violently murdered in the Caribbean while on vacation. Milan makes a trip south to the islands, gets appropriately sunburned and returns to the gray environs of Cleveland with the realization that the solution to the crime resides there. Said victim was not only a successful lawyer in his own right but also was the son of a well known Cleveland labor union lawyer which exposes some sticky connections - and possible motives and suspects - with Dad's past.

After a lot of sleuthing, a couple of painful eye-openers for the victim's family, some after hours reminiscing on fatherhood and romance, some close calls for our hero and Milan tapping the shoulder of his organized crime connections, he gets to the bottom of the case with a somewhat unexpected culprit. There's also a surprising personal twist for Milan at the very end of this book that seemed unnecessary to me but we'll see how it pans out in the subsequent books in this series.

This isn't a bad book; it just never gained the momentum the previous books do. I highly recommend the series - reading it in chronological order is a good idea but not necessary - I just wouldn't suggest starting with The Cleveland Local. You won't get a full appreciation of how good the other books are.

I've had the misfortune of reading this series out of order. Being orginally from Cleveland myself (like everyone else in NC), I truely enjoyed the local color and detail that Mr. Roberts puts in his novels. When a character in a novel eats at a restaurant that you've been to, lives in a building you can identify by sight, it makes the fiction more believable. Les Robert's mysteries are good. They're believable and not over the top. Milan Jackovich is human, and someone you'd like to know.

However, if you have the option, start from the beginning. Something very important to the series happens in this novel. It's sudden, and at the end, and having had forknowledge of it from reading later books in the series diminished the impact for me.

I really wanted to like this book; the reality is that it was just boring - slow moving, with no real excitement. If you're a Clevelander the references to familiar people and places are endearing, but it wasn't enough to hold my interest.

I've enjoyed these books since the first one came out. It's fun to see your city somewhat objectively, fun to try and figure out who Roberts is parodying, what restaurants Milan is really eating in, etc.

But the ending to this one stabbed me through the heart. I won't give it away, but it actually made me cry. (I guess I'm getting soft in my old age). It reminds me a little too much of what seems to have happened in Spenser's world through several of the last of those books, where major continuing characters seem to be drifting out to various exits and demises.

I'd still recommend it -- it's up to Mr. Roberts' usual standards. It's just painful.

The Cleveland Local shows Les Roberts's writing getting better with each novel. I enjoy the vicarious visits to Cleveland, a city I've personally visited five times.

The ending is a twist. It leaves me wondering what changed in Mr. Roberts's life while building the story. It also leaves me wanting to read the next book, A Shoot In Cleveland.

It's a shame that Les Roberts' Cleveland mysteries are not more widely available. The series is growing in complexity and depth. His detective, Milan Jackovich, is a hard-boiled detective with a heart of gold who can compete with the best of them. Best of all is his portrait of a complex city in transition. I recommend!