Customer Reviews

Moving Targets

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Mr Reynolds features his regular series character ,Omaha based private eye "Nebraska " in this splendid and well plotted entry in a sadly neglected series .
It opens on a bone freezing Winter morning when Nebrasks is called to the home of a local banker "Jack Castell" ,;he is dead , lying amidst the snow in his own driveway.Castell's attorney "Kennerley "had hired the investigator to trace the deceased's missing daughter "Kate" who had stormed out of the family home after a dispute with her father about her latest boyfriend,a ne'r do well named Walt Jennings.

It is Jennings who is the prime suspect ,as his blames the late Castell for the failure of the family farm and has publically threatened Castell.
Nebraka stays on the case and uncovers the truth behind the outward respectability of the banker's family-one daughter is heavily into kinky sex ,another is withdrawn and undergoing counselling while the son and heir to the business is arrogant and cocky ;moreover the widow is a pill popping drunk.
The case takes him into the less salubrious parts of Omaha-into seedy cowboy bars and the drug underworld ,and he meets some less than sweet natured characters ,such as the obese and malevolent Fat Lady .Before reaching the solution his life is threatned and he finds a new relationship with the beautiful Dutch counsellor who is working on the younger daughter's troubles.
The key is to be found in the nature of the Castell family and the conclusion is as bitter as the weather, whose icy grip is an important counterpoint to the mood of the story.
Nebraska -gimmicky name apart-is an admirable protagonist.He is realistic about himself and his profession ,aware of the expectations generated by the fictional private eyes whose work bears little or no realation to reality .He wry compares himself to the hardboiled heroes of the pulps and is aware of his owm limitations

Plot is strong ;characters are well developed and the neglect of the series is inexcusable.
Try and locate his novels and you will find yourself a source of solid private eye yarns that will enhnace your enjoyment of the genre.