Customer Reviews

The Good Die Twice (Chase Dagger Mysteries)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

THE GOOD DIE TWICE is the first in a planned Chase Dagger series.

Chase Dagger has sent his assistant Sara on a stakeout, and she witnesses a murder but by the time that she gets back with Chase there is no evidence of a murder. Chase knows Sara well enough to know that if she said she saw it, it really happened, so they look around and in the fireplace under a log they find a single earring.

Chase is invited to a party the next evening and the party is given by the rich and powerful Robert Tyler, the father of Shelia Tyler, Chases former fiancé, who now refuses to take "no" for an answer and believes that Chase wants no part of her, but Chase decides to go anyway and take Sara as his date. Once there, Sara sees a picture of the blond that she saw murdered just forty-one hours before. When she and Chase start asking around they find out that the blond is Rachel Tyler and she went missing five years earlier when she was thought to have fell overboard. Robert Tyler hires Dagger Investigations to look into his wife's disappearance. Dagger and Sara decide not to tell Robert Tyler what Sara had witnessed the day before.

This is a very well spun mystery that has more twists and turns than a roller coaster. Just when you think that you have it all figured out, boom! there goes another bomb off. There are so many great characters in this book. My favorite two are Einstein, a bright red Macaw who has some very colorful language, and he repeats what ever he hears. Einstein loves to sing at the mailman " Mr. Postman Please Mr. Postman ", and then there is Sara, a very special young lady who is Native American and was home schooled by her grand mother Ada Kills Bull. Sara has the talent to "shape-shift " and, according to Native Mythology, it means to shift between human and animal forms, Sara could change into a hawk or gray wolf, allowing Sara to be undercover, up close, and not be noticed.

Be prepared for when you start reading this book. You will not be able to put it down. I couldn't.

Odd but very, very good. Lee Driver skillfully blends a complicated plot with unique characters, supernatural fantasy and humor. The Tyler family are a rich upperclass people who lost a family member, young wife Rachel Tyle, five years ago. One night Robert Tyler, Rachel's husband, receives a phone call from a familiar voice. Can it be Rachel? Chase Dagger, a private detective with a life that you would not believe, finds himself with this bizarre case. Cases with unusual elements require unusual talents and Chase has them at his disposal. He has a scarlet macaw named Einstein who just so happens to have a photographic memory. Sarah, his assistant, has abilities that allow her to go places and hear things in a way no other human can experience. This is an amazing read and totally new to my experience. Yummy!

Leann Arndt, Reviewer

Cross-genre mysteries are becoming more and more popular. The Good Die Twice introduces us to a new team of detectives: Chase Dagger and Sara Morningsky. Sara is a shapeshifter, she can shift into a hawk or a wolf, a talent not new to those familiar with Native American lore. Sara witnesses the murder of a woman believed to have died five years ago. A fascinating crew of characters are cleverly drawn and memorable. Einstein is a scarlet macaw with a photographic memory. Simon is a street-wise mailman who knows everything happening around town. Skizzy is by far the most colorful -- a paranoid who believes "big brother" is always watching. It takes a gifted writer to pull this off and Driver succeeds. I just read FULL MOON-BLOODY MOON, the second in this series, and it is a notch above, taking it a step further, combining mystery with horror. For those who easily suspend disbelief, you will find this a tantalizing addition to the mystery/fantasy genre.

Lee Driver takes you into a world of supernatural adventure that keeps you turning pages to find out what happens next and wondering if it really could, it did or it actually is! Glad to have found this new author.

Supermodel and wife to a very wealthy individual, Rachel Tyler simply vanishes while on the family yacht. Five years later, a hawk observes two individuals struggling with a woman before they cold bloodedly kill the lady. The hawk returns to the home of Sarah and her roommate Chase Dagger on the nearby reservation. Sarah tells Chase, a private investigator, what the hawk has seen, but by the time they reach the area, all evidence of foul play is gone.

Dagger receives an invitation to the Tyler home. He drags a reluctant Sarah with him because he fears dealing with his former fiancee Sheila Tyler. At the house, Sarah notices a portrait of Rachel and recognizes her as the murder victim seen by the hawk. Dagger refuses to acknowledge that this could have happened, but soon evidence leads him to conclude that Rachel just recently died. Sarah and Dagger continue to dig into the Tyler family where murder is considered a good business practice.

Chase Dagger is one of the more fascinating characters to grace a detective tale. He is an enigma wrapped inside a perplexing puzzle overlaid by a complex cipher. As Chase's counterpoint, Sarah has otherworldly powers that make her a unique, but brave heroine. The story line is a mystery inside a who-done-it that works because of the interrelationship of the main characters. Fans of Laurel K. Hamilton' wonderful works will adore this tale that will drive them to want more novels from Lee Driver.

Harriet Klausner

The Good Die Twice is a winner, both in terms of fascinating characters and a rapid-fire, unguessable plot. Chase Dagger is a male PI who has recently taken on a young Native American woman as his associate, although his role with Sara is more that of protector and mentor than business associate. Sara, a shape-shifter who can turn into either a gray hawk or a gray wolf, observes the murder of a woman whose death had already been recorded five years earlier. Intrigued by the anomaly Dagger starts to investigate, and from that moment on, the action never stops. This is a great read for fans of mystery, fantasy, and the occult.

Author Lee Driver offers the first in the series of mysteries starring private investigator Chase Dagger--The Good Die Twice. Also on hand are his assistant (and landlady) 18-year-old Native American shape shifter Sara Morningsky and his scarlet macaw Einstein, who, through his sometimes inappropriate repetition of words, often knows more than he appears to.

Driver (who also writes Sam Casey mysteries under the name S.D. Tooley) starts the series with a bang as Dagger and Sara investigate a woman's murder that Sara witnessed during an outing as a hawk. She later recognizes the woman from a photo at a party as one Rachel Tyler, wife of Robert Tyler. The problem is that Rachel Tyler already died, five years ago. So Dagger and company are off and running to find out the truth.

Along the way, we meet Dagger's cadre of friends and associates--like Padre the seminary-student-turned-police-sergeant, Skizzy the paranoid jeweler, and Simon the mailman (who predicts something besides friendship in Dagger and Sara's relationship)--and learn more about Sara's unique history and abilities. These asides enhance the reader's feeling for the characters, enhancing the story instead of taking away from it. The relationship between Dagger and Padre is well-drawn and believable and Skizzy offers terrific comic relief through his mistrust of any and all public institutions, including doctors and grocery stores.

In addition to murder and humor, The Good Die Twice contains plenty of sexual tension, and the author is an equal opportunity ogler, offering as many (if not more) vivid descriptions of Dagger's fit physique as of Sara's various attributes. Living in such close quarters makes for some consistent effort on the part of both Sara and Dagger towards keeping their relationship platonic, and Driver lets us in on every inappropriate thought, however brief.

Chase himself seems as if he was lifted straight out of a romance paperback, with his long hair, all black wardrobe, single earring, and motorcycle-riding tendencies, and Driver has placed around him an appropriate plot, with enough family and relationship melodrama to fill a full season of any daytime drama. Dagger's ex-fiancee, Sheila (who just won't seem to catch on that she is his ex-fiancee), is a terrific source of this, but the Tyler family has their own eminently readable faults to serve up as well.

Having the macaw lead to the solution of the crime is forced but cute, and the rest of the book more than makes up for it with engaging characters, realistic dialogue, fast pacing, and a more than satisfactory conclusion. This is a combination of mystery, thriller, adventure, and mythological elements like nothing I've read since F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series. I was even surprised by my own eagerness to continue reading. I really wanted to know what was going to happen; I cared about the characters.

I applaud Driver for her efforts and, after the exciting tidbits she gives regarding Dagger's past (and likely future) at the end of The Good Die Twice, I am even more eagerly looking forward to reading the next installment in the Chase Dagger/Sara Morningsky series, Full Moon, Bloody Moon.

Recently I read Lee Driver's, The Good Die Twice. This is a terrific mystery whether you enjoy reading mysteries or not. An excellent author is Lee Driver keeping me into the story throughout.

The story revolves around Sara Morningsky, a charming Native American girl with divine shape-shifting powers, and Chase Dagger, a very hard-nosed detective. They investigate the murder of supermodel Rachel Tyler. Sara, as a shapeshifted Hawk, witnesses a murder of a young woman. However, by the time she goes and gets Dagger from her apartment, all evidence has disappeared. Later, they are invited to a party at the Tyler house. At the house, Sara sees a picture of Rachel and recognizes her as the one who had been murdered. However, evidence had shown that Rachel passed away five years before while on a family yacht one night. Sara and Dagger are left to investigate what really happened with some help from Skizzy, Padre, Nick Tyler, and Einstein, Dagger's annoying macaw.

The author does an excellent job in tying the plot together in the end. Although I do not enjoy reading, this was one of the first books in which I understood what was happening and actually enjoyed the story. Despite the 300 pages, I loved this book and how Lee Driver writes.

Supermodel and wife to a very wealthy individual, Rachel Tyler simply vanishes while on the family yacht. Five years later, a hawk observes two individuals struggling with a woman before they cold bloodedly kill the lady. The hawk returns to the home of Sarah and her roommate Chase Dagger on the nearby reservation. Sarah tells Chase, a private investigator, what the hawk has seen, but by the time they reach the area, all evidence of foul play is gone.

Dagger receives an invitation to the Tyler home. He drags a reluctant Sarah with him because he fears dealing with his former fiancee Sheila Tyler. At the house, Sarah notices a portrait of Rachel and recognizes her as the murder victim seen by the hawk. Dagger refuses to acknowledge that this could have happened, but soon evidence leads him to conclude that Rachel just recently died. Sarah and Dagger continue to dig into the Tyler family where murder is considered a good business practice.

Chase Dagger is one of the more fascinating characters to grace a detective tale. He is an enigma wrapped inside a perplexing puzzle overlaid by a complex cipher. As Chase's counterpoint, Sarah has otherworldly powers that make her a unique, but brave heroine. The story line is a mystery inside a who-done-it that works because of the interrelationship of the main characters. Fans of Laurel K. Hamilton' wonderful works will adore this tale that will drive them to want more novels from Lee Driver.

A handsome detective, colorful sidekicks, and great writing make for a wonderful read. Chase Dagger has a past not fully shared with his readers. The cases he works are ones not usually taken by your everyday P.I. Couple this with some Native American mythology and a quirky paranoid computer geek and you've got one entertaining read. THE GOOD DIE TWICE basically refers to someone who dies twice. She was assumed dead the first time and the puzzle is in who tried to kill her the first time and where has she been hiding out for five years. The Native American lore is in Sara's ability to shapeshift. (Native Americans believed that elders could shapeshift into animal forms to spy on their enemies.) I love mysteries with a bit of fantasy, sci-fi, psychic phenomena, you name it. By reading the cover or reading the book description on Amazon, anyone can tell that this is what the book entails. So for readers who can't suspend disbelief, it's your own fault if you are disappointed. Stick to the Oprah picks!