Customer Reviews

House of Corrections (Jack Flippo Mysteries)

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Jack Flippo owes his mentor Wesley Joy and when Wesley asks for his help, Jack has to respond. Except Wesley is in jail and suspected of murder--and Jack isn't quite sure whether Wesley is really as innocent as he claims. Wesley claims his wife, Angelique, can provide an alibi, and Jack sets off to find her-- with a bit of self-interest in mind.

Jack's confusion only gets worse when he poisons himself on raw oysters. This food poisoning limits Jack for half the book and puts a bit of a damper on the entire novel. Throughout, Jack seems more driven by others than driving the story himself. The rain of murdered bodies that seem to crop up wherever Jack goes mystifies him, but never really drives him to wonder what is going on.

Doug Swanson is a good writer and moves the story forward. Despite Jack's anti-heroics, the reader will still want to find out what is going on and will find themselves, like Jack, wavering on who, if anyone, really is innocent.

In Galveston, Wesley Joy calls his old protégé Jack Flippo for help. The police busted Wesley in a drug bust that went bad with two dealers dead. Wesley insists he is innocent, as he was the stool pigeon to the cops. He swears his missing wife Angelique knows he is not guilty.

For old time sake, Jack leaves Dallas to try to find Angelique. He starts by looking into Wesley's life only to find a worse cesspool than his own. The straightforward case turns twisted as Jack soon finds a shaky Fed and a washed up reporter hoping to further their career off of Wesley's back.

HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS is the typical insane Jack Flippo novel that brings joy to his fans. The story line is a wild ride into the underbelly of East Texas wrapped inside a not so simple mystery. Jack remains a miserable anti-hero who the audience will relish for his humorous look at the dregs of society. The support cast add depth to the fifth tale, especially Jack's mentor Wesley. Doug Swanson has written another jocular frantic tale that turns the Lone Star State into Flippo,s personal asylum.

Harriet Klausner

Flippo, the middle-aged ex-lawyer, tries to help an old friend prove he is innocent, though he may not be innocent, of a murder that may have been committed by the old friend's ex-wife who is Flippo's ex-lover, and is being chased by a DEA agent who may not be a real DEA agent and who wants to be a standup comic. No I have to stop there - this is a plot that defies summary.

It's set mostly in Galveston with wonderful dense Texas atmosphere. Swanson shares the Elmore Leonard gift for setting a scene in half a sentence such as a "gray metal table that was loaded with an unsteady stack of papers." Minor characters are nailed in a phrase. In a jail cell one of the warders is "a bucktoothed pale man who looked to be a corpse-in-training" and another inmate is "a truck mechanic charged with raping his fourteen year old cousin."

Ultimately the twists and turns of the plot and the breakneck action lose believability, but by then the pages are turning themselves.

For some reason there are no more Flippos. Swanson looks young and healthy enough in his jacket photos. Qu'est-ce que se passe?