Crime Novels: Review

Read two other interesting stories these past two days.

Jake Wakes Up by Seth Harwood

This is the tale of a failed actor who after living a reclusive recuperative life away from his drug addiction reenters the drug world by helping a friend finish a deal. Only his friend’s buyers have bigger problems than dealing with just drugs. Jack gets in over his head and is forced to deal with Czechs, Russians, Columbians, crooked cops, and American drug kingpins. He is forced to rely on his acting skills in trying to figure why the dead people are dead, who killed them, and why.

Harwood does a good job in creating a tortured character in Jack Palms in never letting him forget his troubled past, but I had a little trouble getting past the fact that he could just jump right into this world of violence. If you can get past some of the stereotypical cast types, which doesn’t get too much in the way, then you will especially if you like the noir style.

Men Are Trouble by James Patrick Kelly

A short novella in which half the human population has been wiped out by mysterious devil creatures leaving only women. The story centers around Fay Hardaway, a private investigator, looking for a missing woman. Fay and the other women in the book struggle to come to terms with there daily life which is run by bots, created by the devils to replace the men, and to make something of their lives which have no meaning since everything is taken care of by the devils and the bots.

I liked this novella better than Jake Wakes Up primarily because Kelly does a better job at creating and sustaining the mystery. The twists in this book are less predictable than the ones in the Harwood’s. I had a little trouble buying Hardaway as a PI because it seemed that Kelly merely changed the name from a male to a female one. I wish Kelly had given us more about the devils, but the little information keeps you frustrated yet intrigued hoping he will tell you more.