Customer Reviews

Felonious Jazz

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found Gilmer's story of a jazz musician living out his anti-sprawl revenge fantasy to be a highly entertaining and engaging piece of fiction. You can tell the author cut his teeth as a crime reporter and knows his way around the world occupied by cops, reporters, investigators, criminal types, and so on. I like that he doesn't take himself or his characters too seriously and focuses more on weaving together a compelling coherent narrative than on making sure that everything is as realistic as possible.

There's a lot of creative thinking going into this novel, from the anti-sprawl undercurrents to the jazz composition that evolves as the story progresses. Lots of other touches help distinguish it from your average escapist crime fiction, but it's still a fun read. I found the Leonard Noblac character particularly interesting, and certainly identified with his hang-up with our consumer culture, particularly as it is expressed in the suburban McMansions he preys upon. Unlike nearly every household pet that Leonard comes across in his escapades, I had difficulty putting this book down.

I'm looking forward to reading more from this author and can't wait to see how/when he brings back Leonard for an encore performance. Bravo, bravo...

I came across Bryan Gilmer quite by accident when reviewing "Recommendations" on Amazon. I first read "Kill the Story", and just completed "Felonious Jazz". Both are terrific reads. I have read all of the books by Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Harlan Coben, John Connolly, and many others. While Mr. Gilmer is not as polished as these veterans, he has written two excellent books. As for "Felonious Jazz", it has a unique plot of a jazz musician committing a series of crimes, with each crime inspired by a song he is writing (or maybe the other way around). The protagonist, J. Davis Swaine (an investigator for a Raleigh law firm), a cop, and a reporter try to determine the motives behind the crimes and track down "Felonious". There are twists and turns throughout, some expected, some not. The characters are well-drawn, particularly that of Leonard Noblac, the felon.

This story contains some unforgettable characaters. The more I read the faster I read to get to the conclusion. After the author's book Kill the Story, I expected a surprise ending. I was not prepared for this.

Well, what to say here. A new author but experienced writer, who I happened upon in the aisles of a Raleigh bookstore. This was cool, the chance to get an author to sell their book to me. Bryan managed it, his enthusiasm was infectious and I happily parted with my hard earned pounds/dollars.

So, how did it go? An uneasy start for me, not the initial unexpected violence, but the feeling that I was jumping in to the middle of a story and I ought to know more about these characters. It soon settled down though into a steady and thoroughly puzzling mystery. Well, puzzling for the good guys, we are given every thought and action of the bad guy too.

I hadn't realised it but the characters were developing very strongly and by the second half I was enthralled and it became quite the page turner. The ending didn't disappoint and was followed by epilogue type chapters, nice. Ah, and that last chapter...

Very good, more of these characters please Bryan. Recommended to all.

If you are looking for a new author and have a sense of humor, you must read Bryan Gilmer's Felonious Jazz. This book had a great plot, quirky characters, and was really enjoyable. I found myself thinking about the characters during the day when I wasn't reading and wondering what they were up to. I couldn't wait to get back to the book whenever I could. The plot moved along nicely and the author did a great job of combining all the plots and characters and keeping you interested in all of it at the same time. The twist at the end had me screaming for more, and I hope to see one or more of the characters again in a future book(s). The author reminded me a bit of Carl Hiassen with all of the outrageous characters, humorous adventures, and the way he weaves numerous characters and subjects together throughout the story. I'll definitely be looking for more from this author.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Felonious Jazz. What I thought was going to be a typical crime story ended with such a twist that I didn't sleep the night I finished it! The references to the Triangle area brought back lots of memories from my time there. A highly entertaining read that I have recommended to all my friends in the book area and elsewhere.

A very entertaining read, especially for anyone living in North Carolina's Triangle area. In the same way that the streets of Washington, D.C. are almost a breathing character in the crime novels of George Pelecanos, or South Florida in the work of Carl Hiaasen, so does the Triangle emerge in this impressively composed tale by Bryan Gilmer. The narrative flows across sprawling housing developments and local landmarks to bring this part of the country to life. I found the book very entertaining and look forward to seeing what Gilmer produces next.

I enjoyed Felonious Jazz a great deal. Sure, there were some happenings that probably weren't realistic (I always use the deadbolt in hotels!) but that's what escapism literature is all about - escaping reality. Gilmer wasn't writing a factual account of an actual person/crime spree. It's bigger than life and that's what I liked about it. If I wanted 'real' crime, I'd read the newspaper. The twist with the hand sanitizer was pure genius...and I'll be locking up all my bottles just in case they seem to be going down too fast!!

I have mixed feelings about this book. The writer shows promise and the whole idea behind the crimes was unique and interesting. But the book also had some flaws that detracted from what could have been a better story. I'll list what I perceived to be the positives and the negatives.

Most of the actual writing is pretty smooth, but the author does have a tendency towards some rather long and sloppy sentences which often ends up muddying the meaning. The crimes appeared to be well thought out in a lot of the details, and usually the details given were just the right amount without drowning the reader in minutiae. There was one instance where too much was given about the phone setup on the porch and it killed story momentum, but that was an exception.

I liked that even though Leonard was obviously intelligent he was rather obtuse about human feelings and behaviors. In fiction so many times an insane villain is also insanely brilliant about everything. They're always on top of everything and always ahead of those trying to catch them. But in Felonious Jazz Leonard is constantly wrong about the motivations, actions, and thoughts of others and this seems very realistic for someone who is so unhinged.

Gilmer did a nice job with some of the secondary characters who were often only around for a very short period of time, as they were usually victims. In fact, I thought he did a much better job with secondary characters than he did with Jeff, his protagonist as far as being able to give a real sense of personality in little time. My favorite character was Walter, half of a married couple who were assaulted in their home. With him Gilmer showed a sense of humor that was very welcome because everyone up until that point had been so serious all the time and I cared about the couple even though they were only around for a chapter or so.

Even though I liked the details about how Leonard had so cleverly planned and carried out his various crimes, the details allowed questions to arise about plot holes. For instance, Leonard managed to break into a hotel room where a single woman was staying by obtaining a key card for the door. But in my experience single women in hotel rooms always use the extra lock provided to prevent just that sort of thing, or to make sure housekeeping doesn't come barging in at the wrong time. Maybe this is just a difference in mindset between men and women, but to me it was a glaring mistake.

Somewhat along the same lines was the teenager who was being held captive. She was locked in a room, but she was not tied up or restrained at all. She was left alone in that house for long periods of time that lasted for several hours. Yet she never once made an attempt to escape. I just can't conceive of her not at least making some serious attempts, and possibly succeeding given the situation. It's not like she had anything else to do with her time.

Another serious plot issue was when Jeff leapt to the conclusion about the jazz album. It seemed extremely contrived to me. That idea could only make sense in the twisted mind of Leonard, though as readers we get to peek inside his head to see the connections he's making. But Jeff didn't have anything to grant that sort of insight, not even what little was provided in his investigation. Sure I think he could have gone back with hindsight and figured it out, but I just couldn't buy him stumbling on it on his own in the manner he did.

One other plot thing that bugged me, though it's not necessarily a flaw in the book, is that we were never told what the source of the hand sanitizer thing was. There should have been some sort of flashback or hints about how that all got started. It was such a bizarre (and interesting) thing to me, but there was no closure on being given any understanding.

Aside from the plot issues, Jeff as the protagonist was a rather flat character. I didn't dislike him, but I didn't like him either. It was as if he was just plugged into that slot since someone needed to be investigating, without much thought going into who he really is. Leonard was a much more intricately drawn character and the villain shouldn't really outshine the "hero" to that degree. By the time I was about 3/4 of the way through the book I started losing interest because of this and I mostly finished reading out of a sense of duty. Which is backwards. That's the point in this type of book where things should really be ramping up and the reader should be getting excited to see how it's going to turn out.

Overall Felonious Jazz was a somewhat interesting read and I think the story had a lot of potential, but in execution it ended up just being a very average book.

Kindle Specific Notes: This was one of the best formatted and copy-edited books I've read on the Kindle so far. The author obviously has a lot of pride in his work and it really shows in the care he took with making sure his book looked polished and professional. Some of the big publishing houses could take a few lessons from him! The only formatting negative is that there's an extra blank page in between every chapter which was annoying.

I was a little confused in the beginning because of preconceived ideas. Once I got into it, I really enjoyed it. I want to congratulate the author for not cheating. That is, he included clues so I could enjoy trying to figure it out. Some authors, who write well, don't supply all the clues and it is really annoying.