Customer Reviews

Impossible Bliss

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Impossible Bliss

One wanders through some stories with only a vague notion of what the characters and their surrounding look like. You have a grayish, shapeless environment, peopled by grayish shapeless characters. This is definitely not so with Impossible Bliss. The author has a talent for visual description of his characters and their environment. Not content to leave us with simple visually interesting characters, Mr. Sheldon has filled out their personalities nicely as well.

The story deals with a colorful character named Herman de Portola Bliss, who almost bares witness to a murder on a golf course near Carmel Bay, California. Bliss' unique observational talents allow him to be an aid to the local police investigators, who must deal with Mr. Bliss' idiosyncrasies while trying to solve a complicated "impossible" murder.

I confess that I thought I had the whole mystery all worked out around a quarter of the way through the book. My rather convoluted solution to the interesting main puzzle of the story seemed to be confirmed at a few points through the story. Regrettably my idea (which I am too embarrassed to list here) was very far off base. Fortunately the true solution to the story was actually more interesting than my unique conjecture. So, I got an interesting story that made me think, and I was surprised. A good combination

Great read! This is a witty and intelligent mystery with twists and turns throughout. I love figuring out the mystery before the end of the book, but it was not to be. Mr. Sheldon has a way of giving all the clues, without giving away the ending. I must admit I was completely surprised! Great book with great characters. I hope the author is planning to do more with these characters.