Customer Reviews

Dead Folks' Blues

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

 

 

This was the first in the Harry James Denton series...and I devoured it in one afternoon. I had to have more! Went out and got as many of them as I could find...and read them all just as fast. Once I started reading, I couldn't put the books down. I was addicted...sigh.

What was cool is that I lived in Nashville at the time, and the setting was there. I learned more about the city through reading his books than I had in the entire time I'd been there.
What even made it better is that Harry lived pretty close to where I was living in real life! He even wrote about the very grocery store I went to every week...

The main character was endearing, yet rough-edged to say the least. I loved everything about the series. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up...I betcha get the next in the series, too...and the next, and the next.....

This was the first in the Harry James Denton series...and I devoured it in one afternoon. I had to have more! Went out and got as many of them as I could find...and read them all just as fast. Once I started reading, I couldn't put the books down. I was addicted...sigh.

What was cool is that I lived in Nashville at the time, and the setting was there. I learned more about the city through reading his books than I had in the entire time I'd been there.
What even made it better is that Harry lived pretty close to where I was living in real life! He even wrote about the very grocery store I went to every week...

The main character was endearing, yet rough-edged to say the least. I loved everything about the series. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up...I betcha get the next in the series, too...and the next, and the next.....

This is an excellent, tight murder mystery plot. The Protagonist, Harry Denton is a down on his luck ex-newspaper man turned PI with no business. When an ex of his walks in asking for his help, he takes the case and finds more than he bargained for. Womack's sense of place is excellent, and reveals a side of Nashville that until now, only natives knew. perfect for a weekend at the beach!

I really enjoyed this book until I became sure who commited the crime. Unfortunately, this was half way through the book. I continued to read it, and continued to enjoy it until my prediction came true. How very disapointing. The dialog and the characters are very funny and engaging but the story that had promise, fissled. This book was an Edgar Award Winner which considering the forseeable ending, I found very surprising. I will definately read more books by Steven Womack and hope that the stories are as good as the rest of the book.

Before moving to Nashville myself, I had a hard time envisioning this city as a backdrop for mysteries with any bite. Chicago? Yes. NYC? Of course. Nashville? Country music? Rhinestones and banjos? No.

To my surprise, Nashville has much to offer to the genre, from the rich to the kitsch, from the twang to the trailer trash, from historical settings to modern steel and glass. Womack throws his cynical, wisecracking, not always honorable but always understandable, private investigator into the mix and comes up with an evocative mystery.

Harry James Denton finds himself in trouble after being hired by a former lover who is now married to a local doctor. The routine investigation turns ugly, and Harry finds himself at the center of the suspicion, the danger, and ultimately, the clues that will lead him to the killer. Along the way he flirts with financial trouble, physical threats, and romantic interludes.

This is entertaining, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant fiction. It's a little dated, yet still matches the mood of Nashville. Womack knows his stuff.

I knew the author way back in high school (Hi, Steve) and and he has certainly made a name for himself with his self-depracatory, humorous but exciting books. I especially like this series with our lovable down and out reporter turned Private Investigator. It's especially nice to have a book set in the city you grew up in. Over and over I'd think, "Hey, I've been there" or "Yeah, I know exactly what he means - that place is the pits."

Folks wanting a more serious, complex novel centered in Nashville should check out Reed Arvin's "Blood of Angels" and "The Last Goodbye". Steven will not make you sit and brood though. Instead you will find yourself laughing out loud, something expressly forbidden in modern libraries where you are given looks of impending doom. The story is classic: Gambling debts, past loves, murder and discovery. A long ago lover shows up asking Denton to investigate her famous surgeon husband and his compulsive gambling. Our her literally stumbles over the dead body of hubby in the hospital and the action begins.

It is much better than most first novels and better yet, provided the entry point for a whole slew of Harry Denton novels. Congratulations on a job well done.

In DEAD FOLKS' BLUES, the protagonist is a newspaper reporter who is fired and becomes a private investigator. All fictional detectives have to have some type of other professional background, and this one for Harry James Denton seems to really work.

When an old-college fling comes to his office wanting him to get her doctor husband out of trouble, Denton is extatic to land his first case. Rachel pays him in advance, and he heads to her husband's hospital to do a little background checking. In the process, he is knock out while Conrad Fletcher is murdered. The story really takes off from there, as Harry soon finds out that there are a multitude of suspects. No matter where Harry turns, he runs into a dead end.

Steven Womack does an admirable job of mingling several different characters. They are all tied together quite nicely in a good, cohesive plot, chock full of witty dialogue and humorous situations.

DEAD FOLKS' BLUES is a fairly entertaining novel, and a good solid effort for the first novel in the series. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested. This is pretty good thriller.

Steven Womack is an author that you definitely will want to give a serious read. His Harry Denton protagonist is delightfully different. He doesn't really compare to any other private investigator out there. Womack's sharp sense of humor moves the books along at a brisk pace. Easy to see why this book won an Edgar. Hard to fathom why we haven't heard more about this author.

If you read James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, etc., this book won't make it for you. But if you're young and starting out in reading this genre, it's not a bad book. (Everybody started somewhere and then advanced - don't worry about it, just read!) I thought I bought this book by mistake and that it was intended for a younger aduience, but apparently this wasn't true. But - YOUNGER READERS - start here! Reading is fun!