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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading a Stuart Kaminsky book is like having your favorite comfort food for dinner, January 26, 2009
Private investigator Lew Fonesca is a complex man. The Sarasota, Florida, detective arrived in the Sunshine State as a grief-stricken widower whose wife had been killed in a hit-and-run accident in Chicago, Illinois. Fonesca left his job as an investigator with the State's Attorney of Cook County, packed his grief and personal belongings in his car and headed south. He drove as far as Sarasota, where he moved into a small apartment overlooking a Dairy Queen. Never obtaining a Florida private investigator's license, Fonesca considers himself a process server or, as he likes to describe it, a man who finds people. Sometimes the individuals he locates are criminals.
BRIGHT FUTURES is the sixth Lew Fonesca novel from the pen of Stuart M. Kaminsky, a prolific mystery writer who, like Fonesca, migrated from Illinois to Florida. While serving as a film and film history instructor at Northwestern University, Kaminsky authored his first mystery and introduced readers to Toby Peters, a Hollywood detective who numbered movie stars of the '40s as his clients. Sixty novels later, Kaminsky is still going strong and Fonesca is the fourth protagonist he has presented in mystery series. In addition to the aforementioned Peters, he regularly sends his audience to Moscow for the adventures of Chief Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov and returns to the streets of Chicago for the cases of Detective Abe Lieberman. For his efforts, Kaminsky has been honored with the Grandmaster Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
When readers last encountered Fonesca, he had come face to face with the driver of the car that struck and killed his wife. Now that individual, Victor Woo, has come to Sarasota and is actually living with Fonesca in the building at the rear of the Dairy Queen parking lot. Alas, the Dairy Queen has been torn down and replaced by a bank, and Fonesca's residence and office meet the wrecking ball in the opening pages of BRIGHT FUTURES. These goings-on are the backdrop for the request of two high school students for Fonesca to assist them in proving that their classmate, Ronnie Gerall, charged with the murder of Phillip Horvecki is innocent. Agreeing to look into Gerall's case, Fonesca soon finds himself meeting a cast of unique characters who will test his abilities as well as his sanity. Along the way he will encounter repeated gun shots, blackmail and a few cases of stolen identity. All in a day's work for someone who is not a private investigator, but merely a man who finds people.
Regardless of the locale, Kaminsky exhibits a remarkable skill in portraying neighborhoods and communities. To some degree, he almost makes his mysteries travelogues. In addition, his characters are presented as real people, albeit sometimes very quirky real people.
In BRIGHT FUTURES, the characters range from the high school students who first hire Fonesca, to an ex-actor who now has the opportunity to bring the enforcer roles he played in movies and television to real life, to D. Elliot Corkle, the star of countless infomercials, who is easily recognizable by any reader who has been enticed by the myriad of gadgets sold on TV. In addition, many stalwarts from previous Fonesca adventures appear here. They are Fonesca's friends and play important roles in his private and professional lives. Long after his latest mystery has been solved, readers will wonder what will be the next turn in Fonesca's life.
Reading a Stuart Kaminsky book is like having your favorite comfort food for dinner. You mix the basic ingredients of character and location into a simple plot and the recipe produces an entertaining and enjoyable reading experience. The Sarasota Tribune gave Kaminsky the moniker "Mr. Mystery." It is an appropriate title for this multi-talented author who continues to delight mystery fans with his varied characters and long-running series.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I'm entering a new phase.", January 24, 2009
Forty-three year old Lew Fonesca has been living in Sarasota, Florida for four years. He is a process server who subsists on a shoestring budget and has almost no material possessions. In "Bright Futures," by Stuart Kaminsky, Fonesca is hired to find out who murdered the fabulously wealthy and much-hated Philip Horvecki. The police have a young man in custody named Ronnie Gerall, who was found at the scene of the crime covered in blood. However, there are those who believe that Ronnie is innocent and they would like Lew to uncover evidence to exonerate him.
Since the tragic loss of his beloved wife, Catherine, Lew has tried his best to become a recluse, but for some unaccountable reason, people like him. His usual coterie of friends and acquaintances are on hand in this, the sixth novel in this wonderful series. Among them are: Ames McKinney, who may be old, but he watches Lew's back and can handle a weapon; Lew's "little brother," fourteen-year old Darrell Caton, a smart-mouthed African-American kid who finds that spending time with Lew can be as exciting as hanging out with drug dealers and gangbangers; Sally Porovsky, a social worker whom Lew has been dating for over two years; and octogenarian Ann Hurwitz, Lew's therapist who uses unconventional methods to bring her patient out of his depression.
Kaminsky, delivers big-time with witty, fast-paced dialogue, a wild plot that requires a score card to follow, and a wonderfully weird cast of characters. The mystery, which makes little sense, is overshadowed by the surreal atmosphere where anything can happen and often does. Nothing is as it seems in this tale of greed, lust, and betrayal. Lew risks his life and even those of his friends when he starts investigating, but he forges ahead anyway. He interviews the deceased's many enemies, asks Dixie Cruise, a waitress/computer hacker, to do some digging on the Internet, and uses his sharp intelligence and unerring instincts to gradually close in on the truth.
Along the way, Lew makes significant emotional progress. He no longer lives under a black cloud and even jokes around a bit, has close friends that he actually wants to keep, and is finally ready to face the future with a semblance of equanimity. Although "Bright Futures" is warm-hearted, funny, and compassionate, it also has a serious side. The author explores the ways in which some individuals sow the seeds of their own destruction, while others protect and nurture the ones they love. Everything isn't necessarily coming up roses for the balding little man in the blue and red Chicago Cubs baseball cap, but as his psychiatrist tells Lew, "I think it is time for you to have a new beginning."
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Proofreader needed, November 3, 2009
While I agree with all the positive things people have said and won't restate them here, I have to say that Kaminsky seriously needs (or needed - now that he's died) a proofreader. Did nobody notice that his wife's killer's name inexplicably changed from Lee to Woo from "Always Say Goodbye" to "Bright Futures"? That it's "Applebee's" not "Appleby's"? That the singular of biscotti is biscotto? (He got that right in Midnight Pass but wrong in all the others.) Has nobody in Sarasota noticed that his directions are sometimes wrong (i.e., he should have turned right, not left at a certain street)? Some people did. I read these books from the library and saw numerous corrections penciled in by previous borrowers. Should this deter you from reading his books? That depends on how important you find such faults. I find them quite irritating, but I guess it is a testament to Kaminsky's creativity and skill at forming his characters that I have continued to read and enjoy the Lew Fonesca and other series. Still, I can't help but wonder whatever happened to the English technicians that would edit an author's work before publication.
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