Customer Reviews

The Mighty Johns: 1 Novella & 13 Superstar Short Stories from the Finest in Mystery & Suspense

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I was really expecting something special after reading Publisher's Weekly's review. I thought the story was predictable and rather foolish. One football player sends six opponents off on stretchers because he knows physics? I also got a little tired of hearing how "brilliant" Tor was. Make the point and move on.

A couple of the stories are actually engaging. "A Sunday in January" and "Whatever It Takes to Win" are by far the best of the lot. I would like to have seen the latter flushed out into a full length novel, and I could actually see it being developed into a screenplay. The rest of the stories are barely readable. Baldacci's novella is nowhere near the level of his writing in his full length books.
PLUS, this is by far the WORST EDITING JOB I HAVE EVER SEEN. I am embarrassed for the authors that their work (as much as I didn't particularly enjoy the stories) appeared in this collection. Page 61 alone had four typographical errors, and it got worse from there. It seemed that every story had a different problem, from periods in the middle of sentences, to transposed 'that's and 'what's, to missing words, misspelled words, forgotten periods and appostrophes--it was atrocious. It literally made the book unreadable.
I wanted desparately to enjoy the stories, but the lack of effort put in by the oft-acclaimed Otto Penzler ruined the experience.
Do not buy this book. All it will do is infuriate you to think that the publisher and editor are profitting from such a shoddy product. Save your money. And if you have already purchased this book, spend another 37 cents on a stamp to send New Millenium Press and Otto Penzler a letter of complaint. But don't forget to proofread before you send it!

I couldn't have been more disappointed in this book. I am huge Baldacci, Meltzer, Green fan as well as a football nut, and I thought this would be a great read (similar to Tim Green's football novels). These stories are so bad, and paint football players in the worst light. Some of this is borderline racist in the way that these authors (Lupica, especially) try to write in the first person as "gangsta" football players. The editor needs to learn how to proofread, and also needs to make sure that the author information is accurate. If you are football fan and you love these authors, do not be fooled.

I read 60-100 books per year; I love football; I enjoy David Baldacci's work. Sooooo, this book would be a natural, right? Wrong! It is the worst book I've read this year, and one of the worst I've ever read. With one or two exceptions the stories were awful; the editing was absolutely incompetent--in fact, I don't believe anyone looked at the galley proofs before the book went to press. If the stories weren't so terrible to begin with, the authors would have ample grounds for defamation of reputation! The money spent on this book was absolutely wasted. Do yourself a favor: ignore the pack of lies on the dust jacket; get an old Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine from the second hand book store for 25 cents and give the remaining...change to any good cause.

Baladacci's story was very good, although I don't think it is one of the "more remarkable stories ever written". About half of the other stories were good, the other half--terrible. What I cannot understand is how this book made it to published form with all of the errors and misprints. There are periods in the middle of words and sentences, words printed twice, mispelled words...and not just a few. There are many mistakes. It made reading a mediocre book much more difficult.

I bought this because of the blurbs on the jacket (from Publisher's Weekly and a host of celebs.) Since all of them pertained to the title story, it seems only fair to rate the book on that basis, even though the other stories vary from passable to, actually, quite enjoyable. But that first (title) story is, well, it's abysmal! The plot is inane! The dialogue resembles nothing spoken by living human beings anywhere on the planet! The prose is so many shades darker than purple that no sprectrometer could calculate it! And even the editing reflects all this. No less than three times is the word "though" rendered as "thought", several "the"'s become "he" and one assumes the printer ran out of "w" so left "was" as "as".
In short, this is either one of the most egregious examples of prose by a so-called professional I've ever seen, or I'm living in a parallel universe wherin the matters of style, substance, and grammar are reversed.

I enjoyed the individual stories, but was really bothered by the quality of the final product. So many mis-used words,incorrect spellings,etc. The publisher did a terrible job of proof reading the material. I started reading with a pencil after page 50 because of all the mistakes. An elementary school student would not have made so many errors.

Just the very idea of putting together a book such as this was true inspiration. To those of us who really enjoy the sport of football; the "the thrill of victory...the agony of defeat": the sheer joy of playing and all the suffering and fatigue that go hand in hand with the game..well, you will love this book!

Baldacci gets us off to a roaring start with 'The Mighty Johns'..a mystery within a mystery...within a mystery. And although I enjoyed all the other writers his was the best and set the pace for some marvelous reading.

It is impossible to pick one author over another because each one's approach to the subject is entirely different with each story superbly written and executed; with brisk characters and no lagging in the story lines. I don't usually re-read a book right away, but I did with several stories in this one. Fantastically skilled writers whose imaginations soar to the heights..and you follow them till the last word is written and absorbed.

For several hours of sheer enjoyment..pick this one up! You won't regret it!

This book was so bad, I can't believe I read all of it! The editing was even worse than the stories! One story began with a character named "Perry", but two pages later, the character's name was "Terry." Baldacci's story was long and slow to get going. His characters were described in such detail, I found myself skipping over half of the garbage he wrote. Other stories lacked detail and were never fully developed. Most of the stories were so stupid, I kept wondering why I was waisting my time reading more. I am a huge football fan, so this book was a massive disappointment. I KNOW I could have written more provacative stories that delivered than this book did. Bottom line, if you feel you need to read it, buy it used or check it out from the library. That way, you'll only feel cheated out of your time instead of both your time and money!

This must be the summer of the spaced out best selling author. First there was "The Beach House", James Patterson's preposterous tale of vigilante justice against a super rich sleaze-ball. Then we get Baldacci's even more absurd story about brainy college jock Tor North looking in a maze of tunnels beneath the college stadium for a legendary running back who disappeared 40 years before. The premise, the investigtion and particularly the conclusion are ..., sorry I'm lost for the adjective that expresses the inanity of this story.

Two follow on short stories, one a morality play about a murder and a soccer game that took place at the outset of WWI and the second by Brad Meltzer that draws on the classic MIT pranks at Harvard-Yale games, were actually pretty good. WARNING! The unabridged audiobook captures every word of Baldacci's ridiculous novella but omits the stories by the likes of Lehane and Lupica that I gather were part of the book. Don't expect them if you try the audio version.