Customer Reviews

Think of a Number (Dave Gurney, No.1) (A Dave Gurney Novel)

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(35)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Edward X Delaney has long been my favorite detective in a crime fiction series. Until now....Allow me to introduce Dave Gurney, Ret. NYPD Detective, famous for catching serial killers, now the main character in "Think of a Number," by first-time novelist John Verdon.

Advice to Mr. Verdon: Keep those Gurney books coming. You've got a long, bright future with this character, his driven nature, and his smart wife. Can you tell I loved this book?!

So how does Dave Gurney compare with Det. Delaney? Gurney does not eat drippy tomato sandwiches over the kitchen sink nor does he drink exotic liquors or beers. But both men are very methodical, very minute in first figuring out how the murder was done, then finding the killer. Delaney had a dying wife, but Gurney has a very smart one. In fact, on at least two occasions, she provides the key to discovering the mystery behind two of the murders.

What Lawrence Sanders does in the Deadly Sins series and Verdon in this (hopefully) new Gurney series is give the reader very human detectives with positive traits and negative ones. Gurney is very rational, logical, number-driven, and possessing a powerful work ethic that won't rest until the murder is solved and the murderer arrested.

"Think of a Number" is doubly tricky. What would you do if a mysterious letter arrived and the contents indicated that the writer knew of your secret history and could identify a number that he asks you to randomly pick right then. And voila! The number in the second envelope is exactly the wild, random number you picked out of 1000. Your number is 658; the number in the second envelope is 658. How in the world!!? And how does he know your past. You continue to receive communications from this unknown person, each more ominous.

The receiver is Mark Mellery, a college acquaintance of Gurney, one he barely knew, but one who knows Gurney's record for catching serial killers. Mellery is really frightened and pretty much begs Gurney to find out who the letter-writer, then telephone-caller is. Madeleine, Gurney's wife, pretty much begs him to not get involved. He is retired; they were supposed to do things together. She was a patient wife during all his absences of active duty cases when his steel-trap mind was working non-stop to solve serial murders.

Then there's the art teacher who is attracted to Gurney, despite his marital status and despite also having Madeleine as a student in the same art class. This class was Madeleine's effort to have them do things together in their retirement. But what annoys her is that this art teacher is encouraging Gurney in his new art effort. He takes photos of his serial killers and uses a photo program to enhance the killer look. Too chilling, too horrifying, too downright reminiscent of the killers' sick psyches. And this woman would hang these in her art gallery! And call him on pretext!

Oh, I could wax on all night about this book. Short version: Gurney is hooked. New York pays him as a consultant. There are murders and such spooky mysteries concerning each case. How are the victims related? What is the connection? Does Gurney maintain his record and solve them? You would think so, wouldn't you?

John Verdon, please keep Dave Gurney alive by writing another book! He is too fascinating a character, as is his smart wife, to let them rest in just one book!

John Verdon's first book, Think Of A Number, provides some needed freshness to the mystery genre, which is filled with books that can be characterized as "same old, same old." While Think Of A Number has a few too many peaks and valleys, it, overall, is an interesting, suspenseful and intelligent book that I found enjoyable and entertaining. Without going into a lot of detail, the plot kicks off with some people receiving a taunting letter that ends with a simple declaration: "See how well I know your secrets -- just think of a number." Those who comply find the letter writer has predicted their random choices exactly. For the retired police investigator brought in as a consultant, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but then ignite a massive serial murder investigation. Besides its well-written (though at times uneven) plot, Verdon does a good job in creating some realistic and multi-dimensional characters. That should be enough to help you decide if this is a book for you.

Plot/Storyline: 4 Stars

With a very smart plot, this book kept me guessing right up until the end. Gurney, a retired NYPD Homicide Detective, is sucked into a mystery when an old friend, Mark Mellery, contacts him about what he thinks may be a stalker. Mark has received a note stating that he should "Think of a number", then when he opens the note, the number is there. It's not just a number from one to ten, either. Also, Mellery has no connection with the number he thought of; it was just random.

As Gurney tried to figure out this mystery, I was trying to figure it out, also. I failed for a bit. I did figure out the trick used by the killer with the second note. That one didn't take me but a moment to figure out. The disappointing thing was that it took Gurney, a supposedly `genius' detective so long to get it.

On that same line, Gurney's wife seemed to be a far better detective than Gurney himself. For all of her hatred of Gurney's old job, she sure managed to solve the crime for him.

I was not only intrigued by the mysterious number trick, but I was also impressed with the ingenous answer. Often, authors seem to throw out silly answers. It's like they had a good idea, but no good ideas for resolution. That was not so here. Mr. Verdon planned and executed a wonderful mystery with an interesting and believable resolution.

The storyline did not move quite as fast as I would have liked. The amount of time spent on Gurney's relationship with his wife was a little unbalanced.

Character Development: 3 1/4 Stars

Gurney was a pretty well-fleshed out character. He was annoying at times with his constant worrying about what his wife would think. He was also inconsistent with his reputation, as indicated above.

Gurney's wife was not well done at all. She hates his job and doesn't appear to even like Gurney very much.

Mellery could have been a more sympathetic character. Instead of empathy or fear on his behalf, I found myself wanting him to just go ahead and get killed off so he wouldn't annoy me anymore.

Writing Style: 4 Stars

The writing style was pretty good. However, for a murder mystery, there were a few too many `flowers.' In other words, the descriptions of landscapes, etc. were just too detailed. I didn't need two paragraphs spent on every view of the scenery that Gurney experienced.

Dave Gurney is a retired (at age 47), much decorated police officer. The author never adequately explains how, in his short career, Gurney manages to solve so many serial killings, but never mind. He's pulled into what turns out to be yet another serial killer's doings by an old college acquaintance who receives poems involving numbers.

There is much in this book that is quite clever, and I enjoyed the writing. But there are too many subplots that just dangle, never resolved. There are obvious leads that are never explored. There are faux-rensics (fake forensics), improper police procedures for the jurisdictions written about; for example, local police conducting murder investigations. I won't go into detail because I hate a spoiler, but suffice to say the better writers in this genre get the details right. This is yet another CSI-style detective novel with not enough underlying research.

On a side note, I bought this because it was advertised by the publishing house as having a tremendous sale price. I liked the write up, and the reviews looked very strong. Boy, was I fooled. I could have done much better for my money. It should have been free.

I am going to make this a brief but hopefully helpful review. Actually, I am not even going to say if the book is good or bad, considering how subjective that is. I am simply going to make a couple of points and then let you draw your own conclusions:

1) While I consider myself an intelligent person, when it comes to these mystery books I must admit that I'm very "slow", usually I don't figure out who the killer until it is thrown right at my face. Lame, I know. The reason I am saying this is that while reading this book I managed to pick up on the mystery way before the "brilliant" Detective Gurney. Considering my usual ineptitude to solve mysteries, this is saying a lot.

2) The main character, Detective David Gurney, is made out to be a brilliant cop, almost a genius of superior intellect. However, throughout the book he is outsmarted by his wife several times, and he makes those mistakes that have you slap your forehead in disbelief. I have to say, I automatically disqualify any book that has its hero make those forehead-slapping mistakes that make me roll my eyes. Really, to me that is a deal breaker. If anyone had told me I would find that in this book, it would have been enough to prevent me from buying it. So if you are like me and don't like having your intelligence underestimated, I suggest you look elsewhere. If you are able to overlook that, you may find this book quite passable.

Well, this was not as short as I planned, but I hope it helps!

THINK OF A NUMBER reminds me a great deal of the "locked room" mysteries I used to read as an adolescent. Which is to say, the real issue in this book is HOW the murderer is able to pull off his crimes. What makes this novel successful is that author Verdon is able to construct an intriguing series of puzzles, all of which the reader can solve for himself if he follows the right clues. Books like this don't get written much anymore, and it's nice to see a throwback to the Agatha Christie/Ellery Queen style of storytelling.

That being said, THINK OF A NUMBER is far from perfect. This novel is ultimately slow-paced, and contains very little true suspense until the final climax. The writing is decent for a debut, but author John Verdon writes in a relatively dry, verbose style that I sometimes found off-putting. And worst of all, this novel's hero -- retired NYPD police detective Dave Gurney -- lacks personality. This is undeniably Verdon's intention, as the hero is supposed to be an introverted man who has problems relating to other people, including his own wife and adult son. But in THINK OF A NUMBER, he often comes across as something of a bore. This novel would have been stronger if it had a more likable, assertive protagonist.

Overall, though, THINK OF A NUMBER is an entertaining effort, largely due to its inventive, puzzle-filled plotline. If you like a good old-fashioned mystery story, this is probably worth a try.

This book begins very slowly. I managed to finish, but am not looking for another book by Verdon.

It starts well enough: threatening poems, 'psychic' stalker, terrorized victim, gruesome death.

But implausibilities pile up. Starting with, for example, the evocative phrase 'Think of a number'. It should have led the master detective to investigate mind-reading tricks even before the first murder. But then he would have solved the crime quickly and it would have been a short book.

Which it definitely is not. Dozens of pages are wasted in unbearably dull conference room scenes, dozens more in tedious marital drama, and dozens more in the master detective's self-involved ruminations while driving around.

There is very little actual police work. Obvious questions are never asked. Lines of inquiry which would have found the killer are avoided. There is little action.

The climax is preposterous.

I really tried to work with the author while reading this, to see it as a captivating thriller. It was instead a credible cerebral mystery story, with very few thrilling moments. Since I'm reviewer #127 I won't recap the plot. I did in fact enjoy reading it, but it doesn't live up to the hype created by its celebrity endorsements.

It is a very readable mystery novel that I enjoyed during a week at the beach. The plot is clever, and Verdon created one of those brilliant-yet-twisted criminals who would be comfortable in a Batman movie. It has its interesting moments but I did not find it gripping. In a great thriller, you are there, you become part of that world, but I never really became immersed in this story. The writing style is a bit sophomorish, and it was not until after I finished it that I learned it is the author's first novel after a career as an advertising executive.

There are a few issues I have with the book:

- The characters are flat and stereotyped, although clearly a lot of work went into the protaganist and his wife.
- The dialog is overly contrived and can be trite, and does not strike me at all as the way people talk. It's sort of a film noir feel, cheesy at times.
- It has a long ramp-up before any actual crime is committed. The first quarter of the book is all setup.
- A chief plot device that we are supposed to think of as a real stumper was something that I figured out very early in the book. I won't put spoilers in this review (but see Comments for one). However, it should be said that even if the detective had figured this out as early as I did, it still didn't solve the mystery and could have made for an interesting turn of events. But the moment when he realized what had happened was presented as a bit of a climactic moment, all out of proportion.
- A fact that was incredibly obvious came up later in the book regarding this same plot device, but this fact was completely missed by the presumably brilliant detective. Maybe this was because the author himself didn't notice what he had written.
- Our detective commits one impulsive act that is utterly and totally out of character for him, and had no redeeming value.

I would certainly recommend it as fun but it's not a must-read for mystery aficiandos.

Other reviewers' high regard for this novel led me to try it, but I was disappointed by some of the formulaic aspects of the effort. The murderer comes across as a stock brilliant villain from central casting who is not made more interesting by his Norman Bates overtones, and the puzzles (the number trick of the title, and the perplexing crime scenes themselves) are essentially gimmicks that a true puzzle master like Agatha Christie would make credible but lesser talents cannot.

On the good side, dialog is smart and there are some interesting characters encountered along the way. Protagonist Gurney is an American Adam Dalgleish, sharply observant about the world and more skilled in interrogation technique than in personal relationships; like Dalgleish, he is also humanized a bit by his artistic temperament -- graphic arts in this case rather than poetry. An angry blunt-spoken policeman who enters the novel after a secondary murder proves to be more than a stock character in service of a complicated plot, and the lead investigator of the first crime is a bitter, backbiting departmental malcontent who has a lot more to offer than his unbroken string of sarcastic asides would indicate. A politically sensitive, favor-currying team leader is a less successful character, but he is there primarily for comic relief anyway. Women characters are well done, including a member of the investigation team who is usually seen at the keyboard of a laptop that contains relevant evidence, a psychologist, and Gurney's wife.

One of the challenges that mystery writers face is to keep the whole book from sitting down when its characters sit down around a table to go over the evidence. Verdon gets away with it not once, but twice. The characters on the team are observed with enough sharpness and some of them show enough colorful intelligence to keep the story moving during an exercise that is primarily designed to keep the reader informed (and, of course, skillfully misdirected). Two thirds of the way through the book the same people sit down again to go over additional evidence and new developments in a second action-free conversation; even though the writer's challenge is a little greater because the reader has seen this trick before, Verdon still keeps the reader engaged. Thumbs up: nicely done.

So a middling review from me: not a bad novel, but not completely successful. Enough is right on individual pages and in individual scenes to make me wish every scene and every element of the story line had been given the same attention and polish. If Verdon has a second novel in him, it's a safe bet I will read it.

Those who liked this book better than I did might like to check out the three novels by Don Bredes that feature Hector Bellevance.