Customer Reviews

Meter Made

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Once in a while I find a book that defies conventions at every turn while making me sit back and read it with a big, fat smile on my face. Meter Made was such a book, even though it's a tongue-in-cheek sci fi, not something I ordinarily would have purchased.

As the story begins, sci fi private eye Jack Meter is hired to find an apartment building that has just gone missing. Jack soon discovers that someone is stealing pieces of the universe and also erasing the record of their existence--tough luck for the poor suckers who happened to be living there.

Fortunately, Jack's got a bit of alien technology that allows him to go anywhere in the universe just by imagining himself there. To keep things interesting, the device never seems to work when it's most needed--such as when Jack is dodging bullets. Worse, it seems to be slowly turning Jack into an alien, a fate he'd rather avoid.

Everything goes hourglass shaped when the story's femme fatale, Neola Durwin, enters the picture. Is Neola destined to become Jack's new love-interest-cum-partner? Or is something more sinister afoot?

For those who don't read much sci fi (like myself) be assured that there is not a single eye-glazing moment in Meter Made. The author draws upon speculative quantum physics in the book, but she resists the temptation to turn it into a tedious college lecture and simply allows the science to percolate through her fertile imagination and into the story.

This book made me a Benoit fan. This is an author who is poised to not just knock it out of the park, but into low-earth orbit.

Jack Meter's new client claims his building disappeared. Lambert Garner's building is not only gone, there are other chucks of real estate missing too. No one even remembers the buildings or missing real estate.
Jack takes the case and is immediately plunged into a mystery involving alternate and parallel universes, with pieces of known universes disappearing to an unknown new universe.
Looking for leads, Jack is confronted by a beautiful agent, Neola Durwin. She accuses him of interfering in her Intergalactic Agency Case.
They guardedly work around and with each other, investigating in known alien universes. The chemistry between them grows as they encounter a gamut of characters from reptilian to humanoid and the battles all this transfer of property is causing.
Mariental, a humoanoid of AGES, Agency for the Governance of Entities and Systems, investigates Jack and Neola as well as the puzzling case.
Neola has more help and travel aids at her disposal than Jack and he begins to suspect her of working with Mariental and his enemies as the new universe turns out to be the ultimate land grab and power tool.
Can Jack find the transporting equipment in time to save the inhabitants involved? Will he encounter his double from an alternate universe? Is Neola involved with his eniemies?
METER MADE will keep you turning pages, gasping for breath, and leave you looking for more Jack Meter adventures from M. D. Benoit. Watch for them!

Jackie Griffey, author of RECIPE FOR TROUBLE