Customer Reviews

Flame (Henry Holt Mystery Series)

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

 

 

I don't know if you could really call this a mystery -- more of a thriller. The plot involves an ex-cop-with-a-limp private detective who is hired by an older man to find out why this man has been hired to impersonate someone else. Very quickly, our private detective finds himself under pressure from a lot of different directions, including criminals, government agents, and crooked cops. Although any sane person would have walked away from the situation early on, our detective (for reasons he claims are ethical concerns) continues to investigate, despite the threats to him and his girlfriend. He says it's for ethical reasons, but I personally think getting your girlfriend massacred is hardly ethical.

But Lutz is a good story teller and writes well, so you keep turning the pages.

I think this is really more of a guy's thriller, and I prefer mysteries to thrillers, so I can only give this four stars.

Fred Carver isn't your typical Adonis private eye, maybe that's why I enjoy this series so much? He's human, the kind of person you'd like to drink a beer with. John Lutz does a wonderful job at drawing the reader into Fred Carver's world, I found myself laughing out loud, cringing, and wishing that the book wouldn't end. I've read all the books in this series, if you start with the first there is a lot of background information that (gratefully) isn't repeated in subsequent books.