Customer Reviews

Gator Aide (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Every other character in this 300-page cliché is a cajun, from Jake Santou, the dark, dreamy homicide detective, to Hillard Williams, mayoral candidate and former leader of the local Nazi party. Strangely enough, though, none of the cajuns in this book have French names. There's even a Gonzales, for heaven's sake.

The story is roughly this: when the nude, razored body of Valerie Vaughn, a cajun stripper/prostitute is found next to a dead alligator, the Fish and Wildlife Service is called in (!) to dispose of the `gator corpse. Not content to let Santou and the rest of the New Orleans Homicide detail do their jobs (because they're all crooked and incompetent) Rachel decides to solve the murder herself.

Chief suspect is Hillard Williams, who used to date the stripper. As a matter of fact, he's the only suspect.

If there were such a thing as a "Central Casting" for authors, Jessica Speart would have maxed out her credit cards ordering characters for this book. Her boss, Charlie Hickock, is the tough, hard-drinking loner who refuses to warm up to a woman yankee. Hillard is the blustery southern good-ol'-boy politician who smokes cigars in the office of his opulent, Garden District home. Hillard is married to Dolores, the faded beauty queen who - get this - actually carries around a three-legged French poodle named...Fifi. Gunter Schuess is the sinister German terrorist. Hillard's body is guarded by the hulking Vinnie, an Italian mobster who loves to cook. Oh yeah, Rachel's upstairs neighbor is the gay, transvestite performer, Terri. These characters are nothing more than a potpourri of New Orleans books of the last two years.

Weaker than Speart's casting is her plotting. Whenever Rachel is at a loss for direction, Speart employs the old "Deus ex Machina" trick, dropping Hunky Delroix, a backwoods poacher who seems to know everything, in the middle of the action. For example, Rachel decided she needs to capture Trenton Treddel, her boss' old 'gator-poaching nemesis, in order to get in Charlie's good graces. Charlie, in all his years as a Wildlife agent, has never been able to capture Trenton. Rachel nabs him in a day. How does she do it? She asks Hunky where he lives. Ol' Charlie should have been slapping his forehead over that clever trick.

I wanted to like this book. Honest. The cover, showing a 'gator in bright pink sunglasses made me expect a light, amusing read. Instead, I found myself grumbling through the whole thing. But, his is not the worst book I have ever read. Robert Walker's "Pure Instinct" holds that position, hands down.

The bright spot is that, as the book progressed, I found myself more entertained. It was as though Speart was finding her voice before my very eyes. I think with a better editor and a little more practice, the Rachel Porter series could become a solid staple of the New Orleans mystery genre. Few Spenser fans will admit that Robert B. Parker's "The Godwulf Manuscript" was an unholy mess. But the series grew up as Parker did. Maybe Rachel will turn out okay after all

Rachel Porter is a special agent for the US government. Big deal, you say. Been there, done that. However, Rachel is a special agent for the US Fish & Wildlife Service - not one of the typical literary government crime-busting agencies. This allows the author to approach the crime from a completely different direction, which was a nice change of pace.

The characters were interesting. Rachel is a person who is used to running from her problems, and here she's forced to make a choice and decide whether or not to take a stand. Her boss, who initially seemed like a stereotypical boss from hell, has depth to his character. The detective in charge of the investigation is not one of the usual stalwart heroes - there are a lot of dark shadings to his character. The secondary characters all have their own charm.

The story takes place in New Orleans and its surrounding swamplands. Rachel is called in when a dead alligator is found at the scene of a murder - a hooker has beeen ritualistically slashed to death. The story begins with that and then takes off into political corruption, murder, drug running, neo-Nazis, and the Mob. The descriptions of the people, politics and places are vivid and realistic.

This is the first of the Rachel Porter series. I enjoyed this one so much, I bought the sequels.

After a rather sluggish first couple of chapters the book picks up with the murder of a stripper and the discovery of a dead alligator in her bathtub. From that point on the book is hard to put down. The descriptions of the French Quarter are wonderful especially to those who are very familiar with the area. The characters are interesting and develop believably. All the different sidelines tie in to a fairly solid ending

I liked this book, it's something different, although I did groan a bit at Rachel's gung ho- ness. It's very believable that she would ask to work with someone she saw on t.v. and find him shall we say, less than perfect. The description of New Orleans politics was quite believable as we have a lot of good old boys in my state as well, but I sure hope we aren't that corrupt. I couldn't believe the description of the Cajun living conditions, with children running after cars on their road, I hope that was greatly exagerated. All in all though this was a good read with a likeable main character. I hope to read the next adventure.

We both enjoyed the book. I think Speart has great potential, and look forward to more of Rachel's adventures. Being a former narcotics investigator, I had figured out how the gator died, and further into the book, Gunter became my prime suspect. But I never fully trusted any of the characters Rachel was dealing with, and basically saw her as being on her own. No paranoia on her part, but soundly based concern. The ending was a surprise. Loved it. My wife (yes, I am a man) says she would have liked Rachel's character expanded on and to have learned more about the workings of the US Wildlife and Fisheries people other than stalking duck poachers in steamy bayous. I was a little confused with some of the locations that Speart chose. Slidell, home of some of our family, is a bedroom community of professionals who commute to their air conditioned offices in downtown New Orleans more than it is a town of factories and creosote. The street car named Desire ran down Royal St (a street away from Chartres) in the French Quarter, not through the Garden District, which has always been the St. Charles line. Why did Rachel go to the police station downtown, when there is one on Chartres in the French Quarter and another down by Rampart St on the edge of the Quarter? She could have walked. And how did her magic VW Bug manage to cross the Huey Long Bridge and turn onto Interstate 90, thus materializing in South Dakota? That should be US Hwy 90, but through N.O. you take Interstate 10. Finally, as a transplanted Northerner (Canadian-[read foreigner]-not Yankee) I have to point out that some of us do love the hot and humid south, and do love the Big Easy. Ms. Speart is pretty much dead on with the N.O. and Louisiana political scene. Corrupt, corrupt, corrupt only begins to describe it. Otherwise, an enjoyable read. Keep up the good work. By the way, Ms Speart, move your jewelery. Your friend from Mississauga gave away your secret.

I direct the International Primate Protection League, its main emphasis is on wildlife crime investigations and seeking justice for beleaguered primates. Not enough people are aware of what an enormous business the wildlife trade is and how animals are shipped concealed in false petrol tanks of trucks, how orangutans were shipped in coffin-like crates labelled "Birds" and much, much more.

Speart's book addresses local poaching of wildlife, including alligators to be converted into leather bags and fancy shoes. In an article in the defunct magazine Buzzworm Speart addressed the problems of wildlife law enforcement in detail so she is not someone who has visited the issue casually!

I found Gator Ade an easy pleasant read and am looking forward to seeing Ms Speart's future books. We who work on wildlife trade issues have our own members as our primary audience. But we have to reach the world outside and show them how species are traded towards extinction by humans.

Jessica Speart is doing a public service in bringing public attention to a tragic and neglected issue, just as James Hall did with "Gone Wild." Shirley McGreal, IPPL

Personally, I like the book. The bayous came alive, however icky, and I feel that Rachel Porter's character was well developed as a real "newbie" all around. She really fell into some holes of her own inexperience that made her believable but her refusal of medical care did not ring true for an intellight person. I would liked to have learned more about Trenton. I think he has a lot more to tell us and is more important than we think. I liked Teri, he is very believable and a good all around "mom". I hope we will bee more of Rachel Porter and I'd hate to see her leave New Orleans for a while. Good start.

The first book in the Rachel Porter mystery series introduced a gritty sleuth that has an unusual job. Rachel is a Fish and Wildlife agent in New Orleans and is fighting the "good old boys network" in many ways. Her boss is as tough as they come, and she struggles to prove to him that she can do more than sit in a boat all night searching for duck poachers. The poachers in the swamps make her the laughingstock of town, and Rachel is determined to bring in a large-scale poacher that her boss has been chasing for years. However, her main focus is a dead alligator that was found chained to a bathtub in the middle of a murder scene, and Rachel is determined that the gator died from more than the bullet holes riddling its skull. But when she finds out that practically everyone in New Orleans politics is corrupt, what can she do to save her job? And when she is attacked, how can she save herself from being skinned just like the poached gators?

This was my first look at this engaging mystery series and I was not disappointed. Usually I like more "cozy" mysteries (those with no overt violence or sex) and I was a bit surprised at some of the bloody scenes in the book. However, I would not say that it was overly violent, and I would probably compare the violence in this book to some of the books written by Sue Grafton (and I have loved all of her books so far). I enjoyed that this character had a bit more sass than some of the sleuths in the cozy genre, and I thought that the premise of the series was fresh and interesting. I will definitely read other books in this series as I was sucked into the swamps right along with this intriguing character!

Enjoy!

A Cozy Lover

I expected this to be a light, fun mystery. I did not expect the issues such as bigotry and religious hatred touched on in the book, but they greatly added to the plot. I really enjoyed the book, and plan to read the others in the series ASAP.

OK...so the writing is not top notch, but the action is! I read the entire book in one day on my summer vacation, and a very lazy, pleasant day it was. I found the characters stereotypical, but I couldn't help liking them anyway. The ultimate compliment: I plan to read the other books in the series.