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bee23 's review for:
Whiskey Sour
by J.A. Konrath
I really wanted to like this book, and I guess I'm neutral on it. By the time I finished I could walk away and forget it completely, never picking up another one of Konrath's books and I wouldn't care. Not to say I'd avoid his books, but I'm pretty much indifferent on it because of a few small details. There was some good writing going on, a lot of great suspense building, but overall a few small things made me finish thinking it was just an okay novel.
The mystery aspect was interesting and well done, though "why is he doing this was the main driving point of the novel", but I found Konrath's characters a little sketchy. The FBI guys were completely unbelievable, and even though I am sure they were meant to be funny, they really just annoyed me at how ineptly they were portrayed.
Konrath also seems to have a need to make fun of fat people in his book even when it has no purpose for the story or character development. He basically calls them useless, and at one point when the cops are interviewing a fat lady one of them starts talking about food in order to distract her. It's ridiculous and a waste of a page. I don't mind mockery in a novel, but when it comes off as pointless mocker that doesn't serve the plot or character development, then it bothers me. Most of the characters are nothing more than caricatures and are not real people with depth. Jack has some, but even she doesn't make sense at times.
I also had a problem with the villain - he was too much for me. I don't mind blood and gore in a novel, but he wasn't believable. It was like the author said "What is evil?" and put everything he could think of into the character. It's just not realistic.
There was some good writing, however, and I'll probably give the second book a chance to see if it improves, but I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they can ignore all of the above. There are some funny elements, a few moments I liked, but there were so many moments that stood out to me that took me out of the story it kind of ruined things for me.
The mystery aspect was interesting and well done, though "why is he doing this was the main driving point of the novel", but I found Konrath's characters a little sketchy. The FBI guys were completely unbelievable, and even though I am sure they were meant to be funny, they really just annoyed me at how ineptly they were portrayed.
Konrath also seems to have a need to make fun of fat people in his book even when it has no purpose for the story or character development. He basically calls them useless, and at one point when the cops are interviewing a fat lady one of them starts talking about food in order to distract her. It's ridiculous and a waste of a page. I don't mind mockery in a novel, but when it comes off as pointless mocker that doesn't serve the plot or character development, then it bothers me. Most of the characters are nothing more than caricatures and are not real people with depth. Jack has some, but even she doesn't make sense at times.
I also had a problem with the villain - he was too much for me. I don't mind blood and gore in a novel, but he wasn't believable. It was like the author said "What is evil?" and put everything he could think of into the character. It's just not realistic.
There was some good writing, however, and I'll probably give the second book a chance to see if it improves, but I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they can ignore all of the above. There are some funny elements, a few moments I liked, but there were so many moments that stood out to me that took me out of the story it kind of ruined things for me.