The Mystery Starts Here

When I saw Marshall Karp latest mystery, Cut, Paste, Kill featuring Lomax and Biggs, I snatched it off the New Books shelf at the library. This is the fourth in a series about the two LAPD homicide cops and it doesn’t disappoint.

The novel starts when Lomax and Biggs are called to the scene of a murder. A diplomat’s wife was found stabbed to death in the ladies room of a hotel restaurant. She had been responsible for the death of a 10-year-old boy she killed while driving drunk, but got off because of diplomatic  immunity. Beside her body is an intricate scrapbook. Soon another body shows up with a scrapbook. The duo investigate and follow clues, hoping to find the killer before he….or she, kills more people.

I enjoy the easy banter between Lomax and Biggs and especially like Lomax’s father, Big Jim. That said, I didn’t find this book nearly as funny as Karp’s previous three books. I also figured out who the killer was….and why, fairly easily. The author really telegraphed the ending on this one.

So, if you’re looking for a good, fast, enjoyable read, pick up Cut, Paste, Kill. You won’t be disappointed. Still I hope Karp’s next book gives us more of that famous Lomax and Biggs humor.

If you enjoy reading humor as much I do, pick up a copy of my latest published novel, Roman Circus at www.nobleromance.com. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

I just finished reading Damage Control by Robert Dugoni and thought it was pretty good – I’d give it three stars. The plotting was decent and kept me guessing until the end – and yes, I finished the book! For some reason, I find I cannot read most books I pick up. They don’t pass my 50 page rule. If the book doesn’t grab me in the first 50 pages, I give up and go on to the next book.

Okay, back to my review. I liked Damage Control, but it was far from a five star book. For one thing, it was too long. The manuscript should have been trimmed by at least 50 pages. I found it excessively wordy and skipped big hunks of text. For example, at one point the heroine was driving from point A to point B and it took Dugoni two and a half pages to get her there! I read about a half a page and skipped the rest. It was unnecessary information. Another example was when the police detective went to meet a prospective witness at a restaurant. The author wasted about a page giving the reader background on the restaurant! Totally unnecessary and a waste of words. I’m finding more and more that about 350 pages is the perfect length for a mystery novel. Another example is that Dugoni give the reader excessive amount of background on his characters – most of it extraneous.

The heroine was likable but a little TSTL (too stupid to live). She finds a clue to a murder and goes off to investigate – all by herself – without informing the cops. Her actions cause the death of another man. She pulls several stunts like that and I found my eyeballs starting to roll.  There was something with her husband that I don’t want to mention and spoil the plot for you but….she was TSTL there too. But the thing that really turned this novel into a three rather than a five star review were the mistakes, and there were several. The one that almost made me throw the book against the wall was when Dugoni had one of his characters fly into La Jolla, California! Two finger taps on Google would have let the author know there isn’t an airport in La Jolla. The female twin identified her brother because they had matching moles on their little fingers. Ah, hello? Male and female cannot be identical! They developed from two different eggs and were born at the same time! Can you say fraternal? Silly mistake like that make me want to scream.  He also referred to some jewelry as costing $50,000 for each earring! Oy, I have some of those gems in my collection and believe me they aren’t that expensive. Maybe in huge carat weight but…. As I tell my writing students, always get your facts straight because if you don’t someone, somewhere will know and you’ll lose readers.

Want a fun mystery to read? Try my humorous novel, Roman Circus available at: www.nobleromance.com. Here’s the tag line: “When Harmony Jane Jones loses her cat, her car, her job and her boyfriend, all within the space of a week, she does what any twenty-something woman would do. She runs away and joins the circus!”  Try it – you’ll like it!