Customer Reviews

Getting Lucky

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Those who read Sanchez's first novel "When Pigs Fly" will be happy to see retired cop Mack Durgin resurrected in the character of Clay Webster, Private Investigator. If you liked Durgin, you'll like Webster, who has the same mix of humility, sense of fairness, quick temper, self-deprecating humor, and powers of keen observation.

Unlike "Pigs" which takes readers on a cross country chase from Massachusetts to Arizona, Getting Lucky stays in the old mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, except for a foray or two into Boston. Sanchez renders the old mill city pitch perfect from the warehouse district with its canals to its ethnic enclaves to a jab at a corrupt local senator, aptly named Swinburne. It's the perfect setting for a missing person case.

The plot swerves and turns, danger abounds, seamy and steamy situations prevail, and no one trusts anyone. To Sanchez's credit it is highly unlikely that you will guess the final twist before you flip the page. "Getting Lucky" is a page turner!

Getting Lucky isn't a profound book. It won't shake the foundation of your beliefs or bring you to new understandings. A detective story that opens with a sexy woman entering the seedy office of an "overly ripe" P.I., doesn't pretend such conceits or portend originality. But if what you're looking for is a good read, a book that will hook you with the first paragraph and keep you turning pages until the last one, then treat yourself to a copy of Bob Sanchez's new novel, pour yourself a drink and enjoy.


What I like best about Sanchez's writing is it's obvious he's having fun. He enjoys telling stories, creating memorable, often bizarre, characters and giving them funny things to say. He also offers wonderful description, anchoring his stories to a place you truly live in while reading.


Clay Webster is a classic beaten down ex-cop turned private eye and yet, with the opening scene of him entering his dump of an office rented to him by his slum-lord son, he transcends the stereotype Sanchez is obviously playing with. Webster becomes a human being with a sense of humor and a desire to save young people most of society has given up on. Best of all, he becomes our guide through a world we grow curious about, but would rather not experience alone.


Sanchez makes it seem easy. Damn him!

[...]

Those who read Sanchez's first novel "When Pigs Fly" will be happy to see retired cop Mack Durgin resurrected in the character of Clay Webster, Private Investigator. If you liked Durgin, you'll like Webster, who has the same mix of humility, sense of fairness, quick temper, self-deprecating humor, and powers of keen observation.

Unlike "Pigs" which takes readers on a cross country chase from Massachusetts to Arizona, Getting Lucky stays in the old mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, except for a foray or two into Boston. Sanchez renders the old mill city pitch perfect from the warehouse district with its canals to its ethnic enclaves to a jab at a corrupt local senator, aptly named Swinburne. It's the perfect setting for a missing-person case.

The plot swerves and turns, danger abounds, seamy and steamy situations prevail, and no one trusts anyone. To Sanchez's credit it is highly unlikely that you will guess the final twist before you flip the page. "Getting Lucky" is a page-turner!

Lowell, Massachusetts, is an old New England mill city that today is not so much a city as one of those urban sprawls that you drive through on the way to get somewhere else. It's a town where you are as likely to hear Khymer or Spanish as English, an urban stew that has everything but a high-rent district. That's why former Lowell cop and newly-minted private investigator Clay Webster is surprised to find as his first client the elegant, good-looking and enormously rich Bonita Esquivez. She needs him to find her equally-rich husband Lucky, whose disappearance is as much a mystery as why he showed up in Lowell in the first place. Bonita is the ideal client- pays in cash, and is willing to forgive Clay's past outbursts of violence that got him kicked off the force. Not only willing to forgive his violence, it turns out, but she's counting on its return.

Readers of Bob Sanchez's hilarious first novel, "When Pigs Fly", will find plenty of humor in "Getting Lucky", but the humor here is more character-driven, deeper, more burnished. It is Clay Webster's first line of defense, and as we learn more about Clay's back story, the laughs sometime catch in the throat.

Like any good mystery, and this is a terrific mystery, the plot lid is pulled back for us at the same time it is for Clay. There are plenty of characters to push the story forward, including an unlucky Cambodian teenager named Choop, another teenager, the bright, but hygienically-challenged Denton La Rock, Junior, and, of course, Bonita, whose own back story turns out to be as troubling as Clay's.

"Getting Lucky" is a great summer read, a beach book with plenty of sass, saavy and surprise character twists. It is also, I sincerely hope, the first book in the Clay Webster Mystery series.

Jack Shakely
Senior Fellow
Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy
University of Southern California

I was born and raised in Lowell, Mass where this story takes place. The cover depicts what were the textile mills along the Merrimack River.

Welcome to the historic side of Lowell, Mass with its converted old textile mills and its canal system that runs along the Merrimack River. Then meet Clay Webster, recently divorced ex Lowell cop, now P.I. working out of a rat-infested office compliments of his slumlord son who owns a lot of Lowell property.

His first client is femme fatale Bonita Esquivez who is looking for her husband Lucky who went downstairs the previous night at the hotel for a nightcap and hadn't returned.

In "Getting Lucky," you will find yourself in bars, restaurants, Belvidere and The Acre. Belvidere and The Acre are two of the many sections of Lowell. Belvidere being middle class while The Acre is for those with less income, often people from other countries. Among these are the Cambodians such as Choop and his friend Vandy (Speed Ball) Neak).

Clay's been getting slightly threatening prank calls so gets himself set up with caller ID.

It's really a good story. Too bad the author didn't think this book would stand on its own without the sex talk and sex scene. I still enjoyed the book however because Sanchez does a remarkable job depicting those areas of Lowell.

Getting Lucky isn't a profound book. It won't shake the foundation of your beliefs or bring you to new understandings. A detective story that opens with a sexy woman entering the seedy office of an "overly ripe" P.I., doesn't pretend such conceits or portend originality. But if what you're looking for is a good read, a book that will hook you with the first paragraph and keep you turning pages until the last one, then treat yourself to a copy of Bob Sanchez's new novel, pour yourself a drink and enjoy.

What I like best about Sanchez's writing is it's obvious he's having fun. He enjoys telling stories, creating memorable, often bizarre, characters and giving them funny things to say. He also offers wonderful description, anchoring his stories to a place you truly live in while reading.

Clay Webster is a classic beaten down ex-cop turned private eye and yet, with the opening scene of him entering his dump of an office rented to him by his slum-lord son, he transcends the stereotype Sanchez is obviously playing with. Webster becomes a human being with a sense of humor and a desire to save young people most of society has given up on. Best of all, he becomes our guide through a world we grow curious about, but would rather not experience alone.


Sanchez makes it seem easy. Damn him!

I was lucky enough to be an advance reader of Bob Sanchez's first novel, "When Pigs Fly," a book that had me holding my sides with laughter. I was hoping he'd write another, but I also had that little twinge of fear. What if "Getting Lucky" lies there dead on the page? So often a second novel disappoints. But I needn't have worried. "Getting Lucky" is at least as good as his first. Often, I found myself sneaking in to read a few more pages before dinner--it's that kind of book.

To begin with, I fell in love with Clay Webster pretty much on page one. I just have to quote the opening paragraph, so you'll get a taste of what lies in store for you.

"Take one Lowell cop, slightly ripe. Shred a 28-year career and a 30-year marriage. Toss in a P.I. license and a dump of an office. Add a sense of humor, a dash of decency, and a taste for Beethoven. Sear with the loss of a son. Drain off the self-pity and set it aside. Add salt to taste, and garnish with small paychecks.

One Clay Webster, comin' up."

Welcome to the fascinating world of Lowell Massachusetts, where washed-up-cop-turned-P.I. Clay Webster finds himself mired in intrigue when a gorgeous lady hires Webster to find her husband, Lucky. Webster's path leads him through the seedier side of Lowell. Along the way he takes up with his friend, a former nun, comforts his ex-wife, and befriends a Cambodian family down on their luck. And, in fact, the theme of luck, or fortune, ripples through the novel in unexpected ways. Webster never loses his sense of humor and keeps his wits about him as a crooked politician plots to escape his crimes. Does Webster ever get Lucky? Well, yes, but I never saw the end coming. Really. Good twist.

Sanchez doesn't waste words. Getting Lucky speeds along like a .44. Thing is, I was laughing all the way. And yet, there is a soft side to Clay Webster that I find more than a little appealing.

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Sanchez's book. Now read it. You might find yourself getting lucky.

Santa brought me a Kindle Fire. Bob Sanchez brought me "Getting Lucky." Getting the two together was my own doing. This week the house rocks, rolls, pitches, and often takes on water from visiting grandkids, kids, dogs,cats and canaries. And yet ("AND YET," he mumbled quite humbled), I read this book completely through -- every last enticing word -- in two sittings. Do not ask how, where, or when. Just know that anyone can read on a quiet beach. It takes Getting Lucky to start, stick-with, finish, and thoroughly enjoy a book that demands attention under combat conditions.

I was lucky enough to be an advance reader of Bob Sanchez's first novel, "When Pigs Fly," a book that had me holding my sides with laughter. I was hoping he'd write another, but I also had that little twinge of fear. What if "Getting Lucky" lies there dead on the page? So often a second novel disappoints. But I needn't have worried. "Getting Lucky" is at least as good as his first. Often, I found myself sneaking in to read a few more pages before dinner--it's that kind of book.

To begin with, I fell in love with Clay Webster pretty much on page one. I just have to quote the opening paragraph, so you'll get a taste of what lies in store for you.

"Take one Lowell cop, slightly ripe. Shred a 28-year career and a 30-year marriage. Toss in a P.I. license and a dump of an office. Add a sense of humor, a dash of decency, and a taste for Beethoven. Sear with the loss of a son. Drain off the self-pity and set it aside. Add salt to taste, and garnish with small paychecks.

One Clay Webster, comin' up."

Welcome to the fascinating world of Lowell Massachusetts, where washed-up-cop-turned-P.I. Clay Webster finds himself mired in intrigue when a gorgeous lady hires Webster to find her husband, Lucky. Webster's path leads him through the seedier side of Lowell. Along the way he takes up with his friend, a former nun, comforts his ex-wife, and befriends a Cambodian family down on their luck. And, in fact, the theme of luck, or fortune, ripples through the novel in unexpected ways. Webster never loses his sense of humor and keeps his wits about him as a crooked politician plots to escape his crimes. Does Webster ever get Lucky? Well, yes, but I never saw the end coming. Really. Good twist.

Sanchez doesn't waste words. Getting Lucky speeds along like a .44. Thing is, I was laughing all the way. And yet, there is a soft side to Clay Webster that I find more than a little appealing.

Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Sanchez's book. Now read it. You might find yourself getting lucky.

Clay Webster losses his job after punching a fellow police officer in front of the police chief, ninety-three schoolchildren and a reporter. That is where Getting Lucky begins. The setting centers on Lowell, Massachusetts. The officer Clay knocked out, Mike Poirier, is like the schoolyard bully with a mouth that loves to torment others. Poirier deserved that punch.

It doesn't take long to understand why Clay trashed his twenty-eight-years as a police officer. His youngest son is dead; his oldest son is a slum landlord, and his former wife has taken a girlfriend as a lover.

Clay doesn't know any other way to make a living after being a cop, so he becomes a private investigator. His son Jerry, the slum landlord, shows his love by offering a shabby office in a run-down part of town.

I have read most of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, and Clay reminds me of a toned down Spencer, a man free of family ties, a loner, and someone that lives (sort of) by a code of personal honor. Clay's best friend is Willis Chubb, an African-American police lieutenant. Chubb is not as tough as Spenser's Hawk, but he is likeable enough that I wanted to see more of him in the story.

Getting Lucky is hard-boiled detective fiction. Sanchez writing style is lean and his main character is cynical, although not as cynical as Parker's Spenser. However, Clay is cynical enough to draw out the occasional chuckle. I found Bob Sanchez's style a hybrid Robert Parker and Dashiell Hammett.

The story moves fast after the lovely Bonita Esquivez walks into Clay's office to hire him to find her missing husband, Lucky Esquivez, which explains the title. On the other hand, Bonita is not what she seems. Clay discovers that Lucky and Bonita may own an adult sex-shop that is embroiled in controversy. However, Bonita claims she is only into making jewelry. Clay finds this difficult to believe.

As the story progresses and we learn more about Lucky Esquivez, we begin to wonder why Bonita would want this guy back. Clays starts to feel the same way.

Among the cast of characters, there is a Senator Swinburne, and his name fits. Another character, Choop, a Cambodian teenager, sees a body in the local canal that may be Lucky Esquivez, but, for some reason, Choop is afraid to talk and with good reason. Soon, someone shoots Choop for what he knows. He ends in the hospital in critical condition.

Getting Lucky has a touch of film noir to it emphasizing moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. When Bonita spends thousands decorating Clay's office with new furniture and a wall-to-wall carpet, Clay can't say no.

Is there an ulterior motive at work? To find out, you will have to read the novel.

The fact that Clay may be in love with Chantal Ladoute, an old friend and ex-nun, doesn't stop him from accepting the sexual favors Bonita offers, but it does stir a pot of confusion and guilt. Like the old saying goes, "men are easy" but seldom forgiven.

Getting Lucky was fun to read. I found a few slips in sentence structure and grammar but not enough to bother. There's a good chance that readers who enjoy Robert Parker mysteries will enjoy this one too.