Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fast and enjoyable read,
By
This review is from: Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?: A Mystery (Stonewall Inn Mysteries) (Paperback)
I consumed this mystery in very short time. Like all good mysteries, the murder is revealed in the first chapter (in this book on page 4!). The past is fast and furious, leading the reader through a maze of character relationships held together with drug dealing, jealousies and suspicions, and of course murder. This was the third Zubro book I've read (Political Poison, and Another Dead Teenager being the other two) and it has renewed my faith in the author as a competent crafter of murder mysteries. Characterization remains a weakness for Zubro, however. His characters at times are difficult to differentiate: primarily they speak the same. He shrewdly and effectively uses how they dress and what their home environments look like to establish their character, as well as creates interesting set pieces for them to move and act within, but as soon as they open their mouths, they sound like everyone else.But his strength remains crafting plausible plot lines that hold you and tease you enough to wonder if you really know who did it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will continue to acquire and read his others.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR SCOTT.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead?: A Mystery (Stonewall Inn Mysteries) (Paperback)
Like potato chips, the Tom and Scott mysteries are easy to consume and (as brain food goes) nutritionally valueless. I WANT to like these books. I keep hoping...The problem with Tom and Scott is that I can't tell Tom from Scott. Oh, I know one of them (narrator Tom) is a Viet Nam vet who now teaches highschool, and one of them (guess who) is a highly paid professional athlete. Scott is Southern-born, starts out a little closeted (a potentially interesting conflict never explored), and Tom is...not. Unlike in Joseph Hansen's Brandstetter series, or Richard Stevenson's Strachey novels, I'm never lured into believing Tom and Scott are real people. They are a gay fantasy--not even an interesting gay fantasy. They are too perfect, too plastic. Barbie's Ken without Barbie. Another thing. No sense of humor. Scott and Tom have the most painful repartee I've heard outside of a kung fu movie. But as serious a handicap as having cartoons for lead characters is, Zubro does have his strengths. He concocts a crafty, clever mystery here about murder and drug rings in highschool, and he paints a realistic picture of highschool (minus the drugs and murder), as well as unflattering portraits of administrators, fellow teachers and students. It wouldn't take a lot to turn this series into something delicious and satisfying. Until then I'll keep munching away, knowing I should be doing something better with my brain.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
See all 13 books this book cites
See all 32 books citing this book
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
