Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Can't Wait To See The Movie!, December 26, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Hoochie Mama (Paperback)
After reading the back cover of the book and learning that Hoochie Mama featured a black female detective, I was hoping that at the very least the book would be as good as some of the old 1970s blaxploitation classics featuring Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson. I thought that maybe M Gantry would be the next Sheba Shayne or Cleopatra Jones, however, she turned out to be so much more. Rather than telling a simplistic story about a two dimensional heroine defined by sex and violence, Preston Allen presents us with a multifaceted jewel in M Gantry who is continuing her development under extreme pressure. M Gantry wrestles with issues concerning sex and sexuality while hot on the trail of a serial killer leaving half-smoked Camels butts at the scene of each crime. Preston Allen has created a masterful mystery and thriller novel with compelling characters. His words take you by the hand and lead you into very uncomfortable places -- the minds of psychos which inhabit the pages of his Freudian nightmare. Allen uses the pages of his mystery to provide us with social commentary about hoochie mamas and sadistic fathers. He demonstrates how there can be chaos in the midst of order and makes us understand that religion in the hands of psychos can be deadly. We are left to ponder why one would kiss the dead and what prevents some people from enjoying a deep sleep. I could not believe that I was reading such a wonderfully crafted murder mystery by an unknown black writer. This is the kind of book one expects from Thomas Harris (author of The Silence Of The Lambs) or James Patterson (author of Along Came A Spider). Who is this Preston L. Allen?!? He has given us a chilling psychological suspense thriller that should become a best selling novel. When this book is made into a movie (they would be crazy if they did not make it into a movie), I think that both Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson should be given a part. However, I wonder who Mr. Allen will suggest for the role of M Gantry?
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing Man, Amazing Book, June 9, 2002
This review is from: Hoochie Mama (Paperback)
... Then I ordered this book and read it in one night. He did it again, I kept repeating. This boy did it again. He gets into a woman's head like no male author I know. Better than Omar Tyree, EJD, and even ELH. I'm serious. I could not believe it. And this was a detective story, the kind I don't usually read. The truth is, I was not really interested in who killed who, I was like getting into Detective M Gantry, her sister, her father, her terrible childhood, and her lesbian affair with Shoneeka. HOT STUFF! That was off the chain as the young folk say. I was like, no, he did not go there! But he did. You finish a book like this, and the characters stay in your head for weeks. Months. That's how you know you've read a good book. When you read a book like this and Between Lovers by EJD, you get proud of our male writers today. They are expanding. They are brave. They are really looking at deeper issues. I love this book, HOOCHIE MAMA, and I still don't know who killed who. He promised me that he is working on the sequel to Nadine's Husaband, which he begun in Brown Sugar and the sequel to Hoochie Mama. I can't wait.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Father Figure, June 8, 2002
This review is from: Hoochie Mama (Paperback)
I did not expect fathers to play such an important role in a murder mystery entitled Hoochie Mama. Preston Allen sets the stage for his morality tale by asking the deeply troubling religious question: "How can the father tell us don't kill when there's all that killing in the Bible?" He then proceeds to present us with a lot of killing by deeply disturbed characters in need of a true father. In a wonderfully crafted murder mystery, Allen places a beautiful female detective, M Gantry, in the midst of an investigation involving at least "three little psychos." Some of his psychos are possessed with demons and hear voices from a father figure. While his characters strangely quote Bible verses, we learn about child abuse, child neglect and child abandonment. Allen presents us with a surprisingly layered commentary on the social problems of absentee fathers and whorish mothers. One distrubed character points out that his mother sat in church on Sunday mornings, but had many different male lovers at night. He stated that the father saw all of her whoring through him because "He has no eyes but our eyes, no hands but our hands . . . ." When a father does show up in Allen's novel, we see sadistic abuse, which often results in murder, as psychos state that they "must do the will of the father." One psycho sums up Allen's social commentary on fathers by stating: "If you're going to take the time to have children, then take the time to raise them." Several self-righteous cops judge Allen's heroine as a loose woman based on her appearance despite her virgin qualities. This voluptuous, blond haired, chocolate beauty is the object of their lust but they dare not approach this karate kicking, gun carrying, top notch, homicide detective. It is through M Gantry that the murders of this chilling mystery are solved, and it is through M's father, Roscoe, that we get a glimpse of how a true father is there for his children. Ladies you will fall in love with M Gantry, however, you should get a copy of this novel for your men. This is a novel that any father who is a lover of murder mysteries should not miss.
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