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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not your regular who done it - Not your regular cop hero either, September 8, 2009
Having grown up on hard boiled detectives, I expect my heros to be 2 parts Sam Spade, 2 parts Harry Callahan and 1 part Sherlock Holmes. However, Frank Coffin isn't any part of those characters. Instead, he is a realistic depiction of someone who has lived a tough life doing a tough job. Coffin has a "history" that dates back to his days on Baltimore, PD. At crime scenes, he has flashbacks and panic atacks every time he investigates a new victim. Although this behavior might make you think he is weak, actually, it makes him perfectly human. In fact, I don't think I would want to know someone who could look at a murder victim and not be sickened.
But for me, the main character in the story, and the reason I read it in the first place, is not Frank Coffin. It is actually (in my mind) the town where the action takes place - Provincetown, MA. Having vacationed at the Cape for over 20 years, I think the author has captured the spirit and character of the locals very well. He makes it perfectly plausable that there would be tension between the real estate developers and the old time residents. Over the 20 years we have been going there, P'Town had evolved, and not necessarily for the better.
Like Donna Leon's books centered in Venice, Italy and Chris Grabenstein's books written with a New Jersey Shore flavor, Loomis has delivered an excellent novel that provides a well written story with a wonderful sense of place (my favorite type of mystery).
If you like crisp writing, a good plot, 3 dimentional characters and more than a few plot twists, you will enjoy High Season.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A marvelous mish-mosh!, August 10, 2009
I mean really! Sometimes the very best dishes are those in which a bit of this, a pinch of that, a blob of something else, and a shake or two of an herb or spice, are blended all together into a crock pot, stirred occasionally, and left to simmer for a good long while. That's what this novel made me think of, as I merrily turned pages, reading like mad! I was very unhappy when the book ended, as I'd grown to really like and appreciate almost all of the really wacky characters contained within.
Provincetown, Mass, is a very colorful place, and somewhat precarious as well, perched as it is out on the end of Cape Cod. It's become somewhat of a haven for gays and lesbians, especially tourists. Some of these latter (the tourists, I mean) are a bit strange in more ways than one. An example of this is the viciously anti-gay TV evangelist who likes to dress up in ladies garments, complete with undies and wig and the whole nine-yards. But it's his death that precipitates the rest of the town's crises, that come rapidly one after another.
Poor Frank Coffin, a native who's now a police officer there, knows everyone, including (excuse the expression) where the bodies are buried. His family have been sailors for generations, but he gets motion-sick, so stays on land, at least most of the time. He spent a good many years being a cop in Baltimore, but the end of an unhappy marriage combined with panic attacks caused by the job, brought him back home again, and it's just more of beating his head against a brick wall.
His lover, a few years younger, suffers from a rapidly-ticking clock. She wants to have a baby (but not to get married) while Frank isn't too sure of all that. His partner Lola (Lesbo-Cop) is seriously a woman I'd like to have at my side if I ever had to tangle with any bad guys.
I loved this story, and think anyone who appreciates fabulous writing, great off-the-wall characters, a tightly-woven plot that actually makes sense, all mixed together with a great sense of humor will like it, too. Try it. You might agree with me!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Coffin - An Everyman's Detective, January 2, 2008
This review is from: High Season (Hardcover)
The first installment in the Coffin series, this book was delightfully entertaining. Loomis fleshes out his characters not only with uniquely hilarious detail, but humanizes them through the comforting realities of their morose and often psychotic tendencies. With moral concepts pleasantly askew, it becomes difficult to truly dislike any members of p-town's estranged population - a perfect formula for mystery in this fast paced who done it style tale of tall ships, sex, money and... lobster racing?
A revitalizing first addition to an increasingly overly serious genre, this book is often more than just a fun read, subtly employing the aesthetic skill apparent in the author's previously published books of poetry. One can hardly wait to see what myriad of trouble coffin will be infiltrating next.
edit: I couldn't help but read this book a second time. Good replay value.
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