Monkeewrench [Hardcover]

P. J. Tracy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2003

Haunted by a series of horrifying and violent episodes in their past, Grace McBride and the oddball crew of her software company, Monkeewrench, create a computer game where the killer is always caught, where the good guys always win. But their game becomes a nightmare when someone starts duplicating the fictional murders in real life, down to the last detail.

By the time the police realize what's happening, three people are dead, and with seventeen more murder scenarios available online, there are seventeen more potential victims. While the authorities scramble to find the killer in a city paralyzed by fear, the Monkeewrench staff are playing their own game, analyzing victim profiles in a frantic attempt to discover the murderer's next target.

In a thriller populated by characters both hilarious and heartbreaking, a rural Wisconsin sheriff, two Minneapolis police detectives, and Grace's gang are caught in a web of decades-old secrets that could get them all killed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A mother-daughter writing team pens a soundly plotted thriller that fires on all cylinders. Tracy (the authors' pseudonym) seamlessly weaves together three distinct subplots converging on a Minneapolis software company, Monkeewrench, run by eclectic misfits and founded by the beautiful, bitchy, haunted Grace MacBride, an enigmatic recluse. The slaying of an elderly couple in a Wisconsin church draws Sheriff Michael Halloran and his amorous deputy, Sharon Mueller, into an investigation that brings unprecedented scrutiny to their conservative rural town. At the same time, a string of baffling murders in Minneapolis are driving homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth bonkers. Then the folks at Monkeewrench figure out what's going on: a killer is staging a series of exotic murders that duplicate those in their grisly new video game, Serial Killer Detective. Desperate to prevent additional murders (the game has 20), the programmers study the victims to figure out who might be next. Meanwhile, Magozzi's investigation reveals that MacBride and her colleagues created entirely new identities for themselves years earlier, for reasons the FBI won't reveal, but which, Magozzi slowly finds, are connected to another series of murders a decade earlier in Atlanta. Tracy covers all the bases in this debut thriller: an accelerating, unpredictable plot that combines police procedural with techno-geek-speak, an array of well-drawn characters and, most importantly, witty repartee.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

When people start dying in strange ways in Minneapolis, everyone wonders what the murderer will do next--everyone except the employees of Monkeewrench Software, who are all too aware that their new serial-killer computer game is the model for the crimes. They go to the police with the what, where, and when of the next murders and quickly become suspects themselves as the killer strikes again exactly as they predict. Does the closely knit group of coworkers know something they're not telling about the all-important who and why? The missing pieces come eventually from an unlikely source as a rural Wisconsin sheriff links his own chilling case to the Minneapolis murders. The two teams of detectives--one from the big city and one from the small town but both with their own quirks, love interests, and insights--provide the sparkle in this engaging debut thriller by a mother-daughter writing team who lace their suspense with humor a la Harlan Coben. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 373 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1st edition (April 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399149783
• ISBN-13: 978-0399149788
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #964,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

P.J. Tracy is the pseudonym of the mother-daughter writing team of Patricia Lambrecht and Traci Lambrecht. They each live in rural Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I understand all the hype, April 30, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkeewrench (Hardcover)

When a debut mystery gets as much press and hooplah as Monkeewrench has received, I've just got to read it, but I read with some healthy skepticism. This book, however, deserves all the praise. A writing team of mother/daughter wrote it (how do they DO that??), basing the dense and riviting plot on a computer game that suddenly seems to be imitated in real life as people, based on characters in the game, keep turning up dead. The plot thickens (dum-de-dum-dum...) when we learn that one of the protagonists lives as a near recluse, surrounded by protective devices, due to having been threatened with murder years earlier - and the perp was never nabbed. And when it's discovered that the employees of the software company (the game's inventors) all have been given new IDs by the tight-lipped FBI, well, things get dicey. With 3-4 sub-plots unwinding, the book is a testament to the skill of the authors' ability to keep everything moving along with the skill and precision of a teenager with a joystick.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Pageburner with Great Characters, June 2, 2003

By 

Scott D Gauss (Winfield, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkeewrench (Hardcover)

A double murder in Wisconsin and a series of murders in Minneapolis are somehow related to the mysterious employees of Monkeewrench software. Telling any more would spoil the fun of letting this book reveal the story!

The authors put a lot of life into the various characters: two Minneapolis detectives, a Wisconsin sheriff and two deputies, the five partners of Monkeewrench software, plus one wife, the victims of a double-murder, and a whole cast of supporting characters. That's probably what made this book so much fun to read, along with the fact that the book has a lot more humor than the typical murder mystery.

The book isn't perfect though; there are one or two details in the mystery I was still wondering about after I finished reading the book. There's also a slight bit of misdirection going on in the plot, which is common enough in mysteries, but it always leaves me feeling a little cheated.

So, it's a fun, fast read that draws you in and makes you want to finish. The great characters are part of what makes the books so engaging. Once you start the book, you'll want to keep reading until you finish the book - I read it in one evening!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder & Mayhem in Minneapolis (and St. Paul), July 22, 2003

By 

TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monkeewrench (Hardcover)

Start up with two dead Roman Catholic bodies in a RC pew in rural Northern Wisconsin. The deceased couple were worth over $7 million, but left it all to THE LUTHERANS! Flash over to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where people are dying, well, like, victims in a video game.

What do these dastardly deeds have in common? You will want to read this fast-paced debut mystery/thriller by the mother/daughter team of P.J. and Tracy Lambert (pseudonym P.J. Tracy - get it?) to find out. It's a taut, well-characterized, rapid ride that makes my SLEEP? Who needs SLEEP? Page turners- all night long List. It is also often humorous and astute: Gino stared at the group with the dull disbelief of a World War II Vet suddenly transported to Woodstock. Reviewed by TundraVision, Azon Reviewer