Customer Reviews

Empty Ever After (Moe Prager Mysteries)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The major secret stayed safe for over twenty years and provided the backbone of a story arc that has traveled the first four novels of the series. The shattering aftermath of the revelation provides the springboard of the current novel as Patrick Maloney won't stay dead and buried. The Maloney family plot has been desecrated and the bones of his ex brother in law, Patrick Maloney are missing. Moses' ex-wife Katy is distraught as one would expect and it is left to Sarah, their now grown daughter, to somehow bridge the distant gap between the parents. In so doing, she contacts Moe and before long, Moe is standing at graveside in the year 2000 inspecting the scene for himself.

A former NYPD officer who had to leave the force after a knee injury as well as a rather unorthodox P.I. in the few cases he handled over the years, Moe finds himself at a crossroads in his life. Multiple changes in a relatively short period of time have left him feeling adrift and alone. The desecration of the family plot gives him something to do and a focus for his days. From the beginning, the desecration of the plot which wasn't just limited to the removal of Patrick's body, has him thinking long and hard about his past, the people in it, and the secrets he has kept over the years as well as the secrets he has learned of others.

Soon, Moe learns of another grave desecration in Dayton, Ohio this time with links to Patrick and himself. Moe realizes someone is targeting what is left of his family and they are using Katy as a means to get at him. It is working as Katy's mental state worsens due to repeated shocks to her already fragile system. Seeing her dead brother outside of her home and hearing him on the phone pushes her steadily towards the brink of insanity. Moe desperately seeks to find those of the living responsible and to bury the past once and fore all.

This book is incredibly disturbing and at the same time a very disturbing read. There is a certain depressing relentless series of events that leads to a shocking conclusion that comes at a total surprise to the reader and yet when the book is finished, inevitable and obvious. It is a book that could serve as a fitting ending to a series and yet could mark a huge turning point and a new way forward in a series. One doesn't know quite how to take this very good book as it could easily go either way.

What is very clear is that this book goes into extensive detailed commentary about past events, past cases, and past relationships that have been covered in earlier books in the series. Much of this book goes into such descriptions of past events with the actual event described as well as all the ramifications of the event. Such detailed examination not only allows Moe to consider his past, secrets, and his responsibility but other themes that have been part of the series.

In so doing, Author Reed Farrel Coleman continues his history of evolving the Moe Prager character. Unlike some main characters that seem to remain relatively static novel after novel, Moe has changed from book to book. While his basic core beliefs have remained the same, his application of them and his view of the world has changed. The result is a living, breathing, humanely flawed major character that continues to evolve as does the series and another very good book.

Kevin R. Tipple (copyright) 2008

The author starts with a quote - The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past.- William Faulkner. As I barreled through this wonderful novel which is also a mystery, I understood the importance of the quote.

Reed Farrel Coleman is a wonderful writer. He has created a compelling main character in Moe Prager. Moe is deeply flawed, but his flaws come from misguided judgment rather than from malice. Often he tries to do the right thing, sometimes he does.

Other reviewers have provided plot details and background. I prefer to comment on the writing and the characters.

For me, great fiction requires great characters. Coleman writes characters who you recognize and who incite opinions. He writes good guys, bad guys, and in-between guys (and gals.) His plot is convoluted, but the plot is merely a road taken for character development.

I have now read the last 3 Moe Prager books, and recommend them highly. Somewhat similar authors include: Ian Rankin, George Pelacanos, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, James Lee Burke.

Coleman is not very well know, but he should be. He writes prose which makes you think and care. I would love to meet Moe Prager, and therefore I would love to meet Reed Farrel Coleman.

Coleman can take a series farther in fewer books than almost anyone in contemporary crime fiction. Empty Ever After takes the complex life of Moe Prager, a man haunted by multi-generation family problems, and turns it completely upside down.

As usual, there is a great plot, which twists and turns in more ways than the reader expects. Two, there is just a great family background in the Prager extended family being developed in this series, and Coleman makes every character seem very alive and real (even the ones who are dead.) Finally, there's a great loop back in the plot to one of his former books (can't say which one without inserting a huge spoiler) that I found both surprising and believable.

Moe is a very different plan in a different place at the end of the book. Not since the climax of Charlie Huston's 'Half the Blood in Brooklyn' has a character been thrown out of his comfort zone as Moe is at the end of this book. It will be very interesting to see where the next book takes him.

This is the fifth Moe Prager book. Moe, a Brooklynite through and through, is a retired NYPD officer, now PI and wine shop proprietor. The series jumps back and forth between the late 1970's and the millennium - this book taking place in 2000. If you are looking for a little more from your mysteries, i.e. plot and character development, observations on life and NYC, sharp dialogue and some wry humor then Coleman is your author.

The Prager books are very well-written and also happen to be mysteries. That being said I have a caveat about Empty Ever After. In this book Moe's very crowded past catches up with him putting his family at risk. Thus Moe's wife plays a very prominent role and I didn't find her a very realistic let alone likeable and sympathetic character. That's a nit and may just be me.

What's odd about this book is that the author doesn't simply allude to or mention Moe's previous cases; he gives capsulated versions of them - more or less spoiling the previous four books in the series if you haven't read them. So my recommendation is - don't start here. The other books are well worth the read.

Empty Ever After is a transition book for Moe, resolving most of the loose ends from his past - including the fate of past characters - so we'll have to wait and see what direction - if any - Coleman takes Moe in the future.

Moe Prager is a complex man, and Empty Ever After, the newest book in the series of which he is the protagonist, is a complex novel. Moe is an ex-cop and currently a p.i., as well as co-owner of four wine shops in and around New York City. He adores his teenage daughter, Sarah, and has a more or less amicable relationship with his ex-wife, Katy. As he says, "Divorce, no matter how amicable, isn't easy, and Katy, Sarah and I were still in the midst of realigning our hearts to deal with the new tilt of our worlds...Divorce impacts couples in different ways. It's an equation of losses and gains. The gains, however large or small, are usually apparent early on. The losses, as I was discovering, reveal themselves slowly, in painful, unexpected ways."

Moe's marriage fell apart when the truth of Katy's brother's death years earlier became known to her, and the fact that Moe had kept that truth a secret for all that time. Moe is called to the grave of Katy's brother, Patrick Michael Maloney, when it is found to have been desecrated, and subsequent events make it apparent that someone is out to hurt, if not destroy, Moe's family. Secrets are a big part of this tale, and the harm that they can do which can far outlive the events that gave rise to them. Moe finds it necessary to search back over the last few decades of his life, and has to "focus on closing chapters in my life." [Vengeance, cemeteries, and `ghosts' all play a part.] He tries to comfort his daughter, distraught at the awful way unfolding events have affected her mother. In the past he had always been able to provide that comfort, but now wonders "Had she finally outgrown the magic...or was it that the magic wouldn't work if the magician no longer believed in his powers?"

Mr. Coleman has written a book that is much more than a suspenseful novel - it is a beautifully written work imparting some universal truths. About truth itself, the author says "....the truth doesn't conform to the rules of Sunday school or sermons, to clichés or adages. The truth doesn't always come out in the wash or in the end and it's frequently not for the best. The truth often makes things worse, much worse. The truth can be as much poison as elixir, cancer as cure." It's often moving, and it resonated with me as much as I did partially because I, as Moe, grew up as a Jew living in Brooklyn, with the Belt Parkway part of the backdrop of my life and Shea Stadium part of its fabric, but also because of the very human and well-drawn characterizations. The book, simultaneously issued in hardcover and paperback, is highly recommended. The author has a new book coming out in October from the same publisher, "The Fourth Victim," written under the name of Tony Spinosa , and I cannot wait to read it, as well as the next book in the Moe Prager series.

EMPTY EVER AFTER (PI, Moe Prager, New York, Cont) - Ex
Coleman, Reed Farrel - 5th in series
Bleak House Books, 2008, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9781932557640

First Sentence: We walked through the cemetery, Mr. Roth's arm looped through mine.

PI Moe Prager has secrets he's kept from his wife, now ex-wife. Now those secrets are making themselves known with tragic results.

It's Moe's job to find out who hates him so much they want to destroy his life and the lives of those he loves.

With each new book by Coleman, I am reminded just how good a writer he is. He is a true stylist and an author whose writing elevates the genre. While his sense of place and dialogue are very strong, he excels at character development.

Coleman never assumes the reader has read the previous books in the series, but incorporates the back story in such a way that it becomes part of the plot rather than distract from it.

Moe is a complex character but one that has evolved through the series. He is not all static character, but a very realistic one. Moe is Jewish by birth, but not by faith, yet that plays an interesting role in the story and the character.

The story is dark, the ending shocking but with an element of hope.

Even though one needn't have read the previous books in the Prager series, I recommend starting at the beginning of the series for the joy of reading it, and everything else Coleman has written.

I stumbled upon one of Coleman's books inadvertently and have read most since. The draw for me is based on several aspects that are consistent in all of his books that I've read. As the main character Moe Prager seems like a "real guy". His comments and many shared thoughts seem more genuine than main characters of too many similar type books by other popular authors. Not all of Farrell's female characters are perfect and he's candid about how he sees them. His characters and relationships are diverse. The main characters of too many authors have idealistic girl friends/ wives and cloned side-kicks. That grows tiresome after enough reading, especially when coupled with the oh- too- cute dialogue. Prager has no side kick and little, if any, dialogue is trite.

As other reviewers noted, this is one of a series of books which link to each other. Thankfully, and unlike a few books I've read lately, they are not "trilogies", nor does each end with a stated or implied "continued next time". While they stand alone, because of the ample background information provided in each, I still believe readers would be less enthusiastic in reading any of these books out of sequence.

Other reviewers effectively outlined the primary content and issues with this book. I agreed with those reviewers that found the ending of this one a bit hard to grasp, in part, perhaps, because it transitioned too quickly and to some degree in contrast to the characters he built up in the book. Still, Farrell's books don't close with predictable endings, they move along quickly and keep you guessing - other reasons I've enjoyed them all.

I've read the all of the Moe Prager mysteries through this one and I liked them. However, unlike the most other reviewers, I don't think they're 5-star works (I'm giving this one 4 stars because 3.5 isn't an option). They're interesting and the stories are pretty good. But, they can be a bit too tidy. Especially this one. "Empty Ever After" revisits and deals with every single loose end (and some not so loose ends) from the previous books. Some more effectively than others...

As with most book series, the author spent a fair amount of space reiterating past events and reintroducing characters from previous books. Since this book revisited so many of those past characters and events, there was a enormous amount of reiteration. It seemed to me that this reiteration mostly did not involve significant reassessments -- that came later when Moe reconnected with these events and characters.

Finally, I won't spoil the plot, but this book's ending just did not work for me (e.g., Brightman's obsession; Crank's reappearance at Fallon's; Katy's fate; the Patricks; Carmella's baby; Mr. Roth's ashes). Some of these plot points seemed gratuitous or inadequately fleshed out or way too tidy or too over-the-top and still other things should have simply been saved for a subsequent book.

The Moe Prager series had me entranced. Couldn't put it down. It had its ups and downs -- I thought Redemption Street was a little weak, maybe a sophomore slump, and heavy on the Jewish culture -- but the James Deans kicked ass and Soul Patch kept it burning.

Much of "Empty Ever After" was comfortable but felt rehashed. There were the necessary summaries of previous stories, and the crime(s) that Prager investigated didn't feel all that important. We knew from the first book that Coleman would take us full circle, but the desecration of Maloney's grave, and the somewhat confusing serious of set-ups, culminating in the sort of contrived explanation of diabolical mastermind behind it at all.

What redeemed the novel was its ending. Spoiler alert here. I have perhaps never been so surprised at an ending. I figured that he would win Katy back, that seemed like the natural symmetrical narrative arc. Although th smoldering desire between Prager and Carmella was exciting -- the series lacked the kind of romance detective novels usually enjoy -- I doubted anything would come of it. The revelation that not only had Katy died (!), but that Prager was now with Carmella -- in some ways, a better arc, because it all really started with Prager saving her in 1972 -- and raising a child (named Israel!) was just astounding.

And it took the series to the next level. Coleman went against the grain of the formula, and proved that the series was much more than a number of interconnected potboiler. I haven't read the latest one, and I'm not sure if I want to. The conclusion was the exact opposite of the title's red herring: far from "empty ever after," Moe has seemingly moved beyond the ghosts that haunted him since his entrance into the Maloney clan. He has a new start. His happiness or contentment, avoided throughout the series, is suddenly centerstage. The conclusion establishes him as far more than an entertaining, inquisitive, brilliant and unlucky private eye, but as a human being.

The Moe Prager series is about a Jewish ex-cope private dick, but its conclusions -- not to mention the continuous exposition of Moe as a character instead of the detective sterotype -- adds another layer. The series beyond the sometimes-frustrating confines of genre fiction, and becomes, in its finale's ending, a five-part novel.

This is the second Moe Prager book I have read and you can't help but like the character. He has soul and he wants to do the right thing even if he has to kill a few people along the way. He is a perfect tragic hero. He suffers deeply but with quiet dignity. He can love the few he lets close to him but he is not vengeful of individuals even when the situation calls for it. Circumstances seem to even Moe's score.

The book is well written with tight dialogue and, for the most part, believable characters. Although I have never met the author, I have a strong hunch he shares some of the same personality traits with Moe.