Customer Reviews

Law and Order: Deadline: An Original Law and Order Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a book I couldn't put down. The plot was intriguing, teaching me a great deal about book publishing. The characters were well-drawn and true to the television series. If I had one caveat, it would be that there's a slight imbalance in the elements of the plot--instead of being 50-50 between the detectives and the district attorneys, it's maybe 60-40. I found myself wondering when we'd see Jack & Serena. As we know so little about Serena's private life, the last chapter provided some refreshing insight. I had been looking forward to this book for a long time, as it had appeared on Amazon with no publishing date. Now I hope another one will be forthcoming soon.

Purchased this book while on vacation--was browsing through the bookstore's mystery section and it caught my eye, because I'm a fan of the television series. So, let me say, that I felt this book lived up to what I expected of it--it was like reading an episode of Law & Order. Now, to the typical mystery reader, this may not be a good thing.

If you are not familiar with the series, you should know before reading this book that the mystery does not follow a neat and clear path (and I'm not giving anything away by saying this...I'm just generalizing the series, honest). And, only part of the book is the mystery of whodunnit; the rest is the cops and lawyers putting together their case. So, if you're not an L&O watcher, be prepared for more details than the ordinary off-the-shelf murder mystery.

Now, if you ARE a fan of the series, you will be pleased to know that the characters we know and love are drawn out, I felt, exactly as they are in the show. I could practically hear Lennie Briscoe's punchy remarks and Ed Green's computer know-how in the dialogue (Green even "Googles" something or other). Serena Southerlyn, Arthur Branch, Anita Van Buren, Emil Skoda, and--my favorite--Jack McCoy are perfectly portrayed as well. In fact, this is the best part of the novel, watching these characters interact. Because there is actually even MORE there than in the TV show. You get a few side glimpses into the characters, like McCoy's womanizing behavior when it comes to his assistant DAs, and you hear Southerlyn's thoughts as a suspect eyes her legs. This is more than what you get on the show, when the dialogue is all you have to go on.

For this reason, I know Law & Order viewers will enjoy this book. But I don't think you need to like the show to like the book. The storyline is solid. It's not world-class literature. But I didn't expect it to be so.

I hope I come across more Law & Order books. This one was gripping. I can't say that about many other books based on TV.

This book was an agreeable surprise. No flimsy, paper-thin typical tv tie-in plot here! Instead, it offers an intriguing mystery investigation and lots of surprises in the courtroom. I thought it followed the format of the show pretty well,and Davis replicates the dialogue of some of the characters exactly on the mark. There's plenty of insiderism about the seamier side of book publishing, as well. In fact, the farther the story progressed, the more it held my interest. And at the end, I couldn't put it down. Law & Order fans will probably love it,no matter what, but anyone who enjoys a good courtroom mystery should give it a try.

When I saw this book I immediately ordered it. As a big fan of the show I was hoping to get a whole new perspective on the charactors and the show. Since the show does practically no development of the charactors' personal life I was desperate to read about them. Unfortunately there was very little here. Any future books would be so much more interesting if this was included.

What the book did expose were the various thoughts of the charactors as they reacted to different situations. The instance when the suspect is caught by Serena staring at her legs and how she uses it later in the book is a perfect example.

Here's to more Law & Order books but with more exploration of the lives of Greene, McCoy and Southerlyn. I have a feeling that Briscoe's nights involve a lean corned beef sandwich, a Zantac and interestingly enough, an hour in front of the TV watching a show like Law & Order.

As a huge fan of the Law & Order television franchise, particularly the mothership, I absolutely loved this book and found that the storytellig, plot sequence, and dialogue closely resembled those of the real characters on television. My only complaint is that there are not more of these -- much like CSI and NCIS both have a line of novels, it seems that Dick Wolf, etc, could have created quite a marketing opportunity by producing more original novels. They could be both episodes themselves or even fill in some of the "gaps" in the 20 year history of Law & Order. I could see storylines such as telling why Arthur Branch resigned or why Nora Lewin didn't seek a second term. I strongly urge Dick Wolf, etc, to consider more novels to compliment the television series -- which by the way, I believe will be rescued!

Reading this book was like watching an episode of Law and Order on TV. If you like the TV series, you'll love this book.

I was quite suprised to find myself so enjoying this book. It bears all the halmarks of a typical "TV spinoff" genre book. It carefully follows the forumula setout by the series ; takes very few risks, and is entertaining without being too thought provoking.

The real hook in this book is that the author is writing a genre book about which the crime is realated to the lower rungs of book publishing. Probably not a stretch to say the author is all to familiar with this world, and the examination of it is pretty entertaining, as well as educational. The last few pages of the book makes one wonder if the author has personal experience of being "taken" by the fake editing industry, or knows someone who has.

There are a few throwaway moments for fans of the series harkening back to earlier days in the series which one would only get if one had followed the series pretty obsessively, but let's face it if you are buying a spin off book like this, you are a hardcore fan.

Worth the cover price, and probably a perfect long plane trip read. Not really worth keeping after the initial read though.

I had high hopes for this initial entry into the Law & Order series; unfortunately, "Dead Line" didn't live up to the quality of its parent.

The book started out promisingly enough with the investigation of a woman's body found at the bottom of an airshaft. Bricoe and Green identify her as the ex-wife of a disgraced fund manager and determine she was trying to get a book of fiction published that thinly disguised real people in her life. Halfway through "Dead Line," however, the book's focus abruptly shifts from her death to the book publishing business and an associated scam.

While the author treats the L&O characters with dignity and presents them pretty much dead on, overall the book reads as if it were two books struggling to be one. The more "minor" book seems to be the Law section (the investigation), which was marred by incredibly poor editing with blunders in the supposedly linear timeline, contridictions in stated evidence, and a scene about important evidence that was so badly written it was impossible to figure out what had happened.

The Order part (the courtroom) seemed to be the author's favorite. This was presented in a competent, if somewhat convoluted, manner. McCoy and Serena come across very much as their series counterparts but unlike the series, there was very little drama in any of the courtroom scenes. While the underlying case being tried was probably very close to the author's heart, I think it would be difficult for anyone outside of the writing community to think it compelling.

The final denouement -- when it came! -- seemed forced and contrived instead of shocking.

The trademark L&O epilog tidies up loose ends and has McCoy and Serena exchanging information that illuminates their characters, but even this is over-long and over-written.

Hopefully, the books that follow this one will be better conceived and better written. I haven't given up on this series. Not yet!