Customer Reviews

The Dirt-Brown Derby

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Private investigator Frank Johnson doesn't want to get involved in a murder investigation, but when a grieving mother offers him two hundred thousand dollars, he decides he can't afford to walk away from the case. Teen Emily Taliaferro was killed, apparently by her horse. But there's more dirty in the rural Virginia town than just an accidental death. Punks lean against the walls and threaten strangers--including Frank, and Emily wasn't exactly a sweet and virginal girl. It doesn't take long to figure out she was having an affair with her horse trainer.

Johnson's investigation lets him run into Sheila, the old girlfriend who helped him get started in the private eye business, but the local sheriff warns Johnson to get out of town. Still, Johnson doesn't give up easily, even when he's jumped and beaten.

While Johnson can see that there's something very rotten going on in the town, figuring out what really happened to Emily is a lot tougher. And when his leading suspect joins Emily in death--this time obviously by murder, it seems that all of Johnson's leads have petered out. Of course, staying ahead of the local rapist-rednecks is another problem for Johnson.

Author Ed Lynskey writes a classic hard-boiled mystery. His sleuth, Frank Johnson, is world-weary, occasionally introspective, and cursed with a flexible but hard-working set of ethics that won't let him take the easy way out. Lynskey matches rough characters with sparse language and a weary and gray environment that belies what should be bucolic horse pastures and country. THE DIRT-BROWN DERBY is one of those books that grabs you early. I couldn't put it down and read it in a single sitting. I'm happy to recommend this one.

Our main character,PI Frank Johnson, in this quick-witted fast paced mystery read is a no-nonsense, often coarse speaking man who says what he has to say and does what he has to do. Definitely the kind of man you may not want to bring home to meet the family but you would want on your side in any investigation. PI Johnson is somewhat down on his luck financially so when he is hired by Mary Taliaferro, a very wealthy owner of a horse estate who forks over a hefty sum for his services, he simply cannot walk away although a murder investigation is not something he particularly wants to get into. .
Ms.Taliaferro's teenage daughter Emily has died, killed by her horse it is said. The police call it a horrible accident, Mary calls it murder and PI Johnson at first figures this will be a cut and dry case, but he is sadly mistaken. He quickly learns not all the characters in this town are what they appear to be, including Emily who PI Johnson learns was having an affair with her horse trainer who becomes a the prime suspect in PI Johnson's mind, that is until he turns up dead as well. All leads seem to come to a halt but Johnson will not give up even though the local Sheriff wants him out of town and he must deal with other local riff-raft who only complicate his life.
The plot and heat of this murder gets hotter by the page and the reader wonders just what did happen to Emily. The plot is twisted, as only a good mystery read would be, leading you here there and everywhere but to the truth; I don't think you'll guess the ending of this one.Frank is determined to find out the answer and in doing so putting his own life in grave danger. Quite a roller coaster read and one that will keep you glued to the pages from beginning to end.
Mr. Lynskey does a great job in defining his characters and bringing them to life.
From PI Johnson to the local Sheriff and townspeople, right down to Mary, Emily's mother, they are brought alive in your minds eye; and along with his descriptive clarity of the local you are able to bring the entire story to life visually which is always a plus in any read. Our author certainly is proving to be one top-notch writer in the mystery realm and has kept this reviewer satisfied with each work I have reviewed. Another good job Mr. Lynskey!

Broke, reluctant, and world-weary PI Frank Johnson is a memorable protagonist in this story that is is lightening-fast out of the starting gate and gallops full tilt to the last page finish line.

Through a mutual acquaintance, Frank Johnson's investigative services are recommended to Mrs. Mary Taliaferro, a wealthy aristocrat who owns a sprawling horse estate near Middleburg, Virginia. Mrs. Taliaferro has recently suffered the loss of her teenage daughter Emily in a tragic riding incident when the young woman was thrown and evidently crushed by her highly spirited thoroughbred Hellbent. In the opinion of the police and local medical examiner, this was obviously a cut and dry accidental death, but her mother insists it was no accident at all, but murder. Johnson is not at all convinced and resists taking on the case until he is offered a sum he cannot refuse - two hundred thousand dollars!

Johnson's efforts at investigating the case are thwarted at every turn not only by the recalcitrance and suspicious behavior of some of the estate employees and interference by some local riff-raff, but also by the local sheriff who hates his guts and wants to run Johnson out of town. Not long after our PI gets his first hot lead and identifies a prime suspect, the suspect too turns up dead.

Now with two apparent suspicious deaths to solve and with leads taking him from one dead end to another, Frank needs help and recruits Sheila, an ex-cop and his former lady love who helped him get started in the PI biz. Hot on the trail, the pace picks up once again...leading the reader through some stunning plot twists and to a very satisfying resolution.

Mr. Lynskey is a particularly gifted writer and this is one debut that definitely should not be missed.

PI Frank Johnson is seriously low on money, so he can't help but
take a job for two hundrend thousand dollars, even when he has a bad
feeling about the situation from the start. Wealthy horse farm
owner, Mary Taliaferro, is grief-stricken over the loss of her
teenage daughter, Emily. Local police have ruled the death a tragic
riding accident, but Mary fears it was a homicide. Even with all his
experience, Frank is more than a little freaked when Pierre, the
stable manager, is found murdered the day after Frank arrives.

Frank has had to battle his own demons in the past, so he sees early
on that many of the residents, who are part of the Virginia "horsey
set" , have some serious issues and baggage. The truth is hard to
come by in a town that seems full of secrets.

This is Ed Lynskey's dazzling debut novel and the start of a PI
series. With Frank Johnson, Mr. Lynskey has created a flawed, but
engaging protagonist. The secondary characters are well fleshed out
with vivid narrative and snappy dialog.

As one who spent her early years in Viriginia, I was highly
impressed by the way the author brought the setting to vibrant life,
even for those who have never visited that wonderful state. The plot
is fast paced and will take you on ride full of twists and turns to
the very end. In a genre where most plots are action driven, Mr.
Lynskey shows his talent at digging beneath the surface and exposing
the foibles of human nature that bring out the best or worst in
people.

If you enjoy a noir slant to your mystery, this is the novel for
you. I will be looking forward to further adventures with Frank
Johnson PI

Colorful characters and colorful language permeate the fast-paced mysteries inside the pages of The Dirt-Brown Derby.

PI Frank Johnson isn't sure he wants to take the case of wealthy Mary Taliaferro, whose daughter died in a riding accident on the family's affluent horse estate. The local law enforcement ruled Emily's death an accident, but Mary is sure her daughter was murdered. The small town features a wealth of twisted characters for Johnson to wade through, with new turns, death, and evil added along the way.

Author Ed Lynskey has created memorable characters, a vivid setting, and a tangled maze of a mystery to solve.

Armchair Interview says: If you like fast-paced mysteries then curl up in a chair with The Dirt-Brown Derby and enjoy.

Set in rural Virginia, The Dirt-Brown Derby is an old-school style, murder, and detective story. The book is a kind of formula Dashiell Hammett meets Tom Wolf attitude with plenty of phallic fun. Ed Lynskey does an excellent job of creating a strong voice for the main character Franklin Johnson. Johnson, a rough around the edges private eye takes us for a ride in his "mutant Yugo" to the "dirty little town," of Kaiser Virginia, where he is employed by Mary Taliaferro to investigate the death of her daughter Emily.

Mrs. Taliferro's ranch, Dakota Farms is home to some very interesting characters. There's the hired help; Ralph the gambling addict gardener, his wife Rachel the housekeeper, Stanley Pettigrew the drunken security guard, Pierre the studdly horse trainer, and suspect number one, a wily stallion named Hellbent. If these characters are not enough then there are the town folk, including Stanley's cousin Sheriff Pettigrew, Deputy Sheriff Thornbird, Adam a local drug dealer, The red-neck Kilby cousins, and Frank's old girlfriend Shelia, a hair dresser.

Just as Frank begins to unravel some clues to the so-called riding accident that killed Emily, Pierre the trainer is murdered giving the mystery a new twist. Frank also bumbles onto a local girl being raped by the abhorrent Kilby Cousins. This instantly gives him two enemies to watch out for but also allies him with Deputy Thornbird. The plot only thickens when Frank gets beat-up, Ralph the gardener and Sheriff Pettigrew go missing, Frank becomes involved again with Shelia, gets beat-up, Mrs. Taliferro puts the moves on him, and he gets beat-up some more. All this action really does turn this novel into a derby.

Ed Lynskey adds so many colorful bits of trivia and local fine points that his novel seems to take on a wonderfully descriptive voice of its own. His lovely writing gives a good balance to all of the booze, guns, and testosterone that make this a very funny book as well. The Dirt-Brown Derby is a well-written whirlwind of details.

Aside from the many typographical mistakes that riddle the first few chapters of this novel, The Dirt-Brown Derby is a fun read. The only things it lacks are believable woman characters. Mrs. Taliferro is way too flamboyant and swoonish, Rachael is a bit underdeveloped as she spends most of the novel sleeping off prescription drugs, and frailty thy name is Shelia. However, if you are in the mood for a fast paced old fashion who-done-it, The Dirt-Brown Derby is the way to go.

"Now or never, it was my turn. I jacked upright, the 9 mil an extension of my arm. I rolled right, my natural side. Kilby was at the pew's end, three rows off to my front. The backlit stained glass windows imprinted his lank profile. It was a sweet shot. And I took it. My finger jerked the trigger." -- from The Dirt-Brown Derby

Author Ed Lynskey and his series character, private eye Frank Johnson, have been around for a while, but you may not yet know their names because The Dirt-Brown Derby is Lynskey's debut novel. It is published by Mundania Press, a small publisher whose books I've been very impressed with -- see also Adrienne Jones's The Hoax and Jeff Strand's Andrew Mayhem series.

At this writing, Lynskey has published over 40 short stories featuring Johnson, both in print and online. Of these, 15 were gathered in his first book, Out of Town for a Few Days, a short story collection currently available as an e-book for $2.99. It looks like Johnson was ready to stretch his legs for a longer case this time around, and Lynskey was happy to oblige.

If Johnson had plans, spending the third week of April in Kaiser, Virginia, probably wasn't among them. At the beginning of The Dirt-Brown Derby, Johnson simply cannot resist the $200,000 paycheck (could you?) offered by Mrs. Mary Taliaferro for finding the murderer of her daughter Emily -- even though Johnson and the police agree on the culprit: Emily's horse, Hellbent.

On the contrary, Mrs. Taliaferro states, "no true-breed horse will choose to crush a human," and the hunt is on for a human killer. Not soon enough to save the next victim a trip to the morgue, however, but if the mysterious death of Emily's father is anything to go on, at least this won't be a wild goose chase (not unlike when Nick Charles goes looking for a killer at the racetrack in Shadow of the Thin Man).

Johnson, like most PIs, is a have-not thrust among the haves. In fact, he is only a private investigator because he had no other ambition, his on-and-off girlfriend Sheila saw it as steady work, and he passed the licensure exam. In other words, Johnson is pretty much just treading water like a lot of people. If he can solve the case (alongside Deputy Sheriff Thornbird), while slipping a little romance in for good measure, and maybe buy a new car with the proceeds, he'll be coming out ahead.

Lynskey has created Johnson from classic stock. If it weren't so modern-looking, The Dirt-Brown Derby would feel just like a detective novel from the old days; Johnson even has an oddly stilted way of speaking that reminded me of the difficulty I first had reading the novels of Raymond Chandler and John D. MacDonald. But the prose is taut (read every word, or you'll get lost), the attitude is sharp (but not without compassion), and the characters are deeply drawn (and it's hard to know who to trust).

If you've got a taste for an old-fashioned PI novel, consider picking up The Dirt-Brown Derby. It may not have the kind of lurid cover you have to hide from your co-workers, but the content is just as tough and readable as ever. And when you're done, and find you really like Lynskey's style, don't fret because his next Frank Johnson case The Blue Cheer comes out in February 2007 from Point Blank Press, with another from Mundania, Pelham Fell Here (that goes back to an earlier time in Frank's life), due to drop later in the year. Other books are making the rounds, too, so I have a feeling that Ed Lynskey is a name mystery fans are going to become very familiar with in the near future.

Reviewed by Brad Phelps (age 16) for Reader Views (4/07)

In this mystery novel the author tells of a freak horse-riding accident that could've been a murder. The story is told by PI Frank Johnson who has been assigned to the case.

Johnson is summoned to the small, quiet town of Kaiser, VA, by a wealthy woman named Mary Taliaferro. Her daughter was killed from a horse trampling her head, or at least that's what it looks like. Mrs. Taliaferro thinks different, she believes someone staged the death and her 15-year-old daughter was actually murdered.

As soon as Johnson arrived at the horse estate, things seemed weird, and not a day after he got there the estate's horse trainer was shot and killed. With no help from the sheriff, Johnson has trouble finding leads. He soon discovers that Kaiser is a dirty little town, filled with druggies, bums, and alcoholics.

Johnson finally comes to some conclusions after countless "distractions" and tracks down the killer along with a couple rapists.

This book is a great read. It has a good plot and the author was great at keeping the suspense gong. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery novels. I think it was a good idea to combine a sophisticated thing like horse-racing with a cold-blood murder case.

A tragic event has come upon the Taliaferro estate. Could a teenage girl's horse-riding accident actually be murder? Now it's up to PI Frank Johnson to dig up the truth, even if it kills him. Find out what happens in "The Dirt-Brown Derby."

Book received free of charge.