A body turns up in the crawl space underneath a Wisconsin farmhouse, and the vic turns out to be a local woman named Carole Graff. Who killed the poor woman, and why? Luckily, retired investigator Buzz Miller takes on the case. She's smart but a little crazy, just like the friends and family who get mixed up in the case.
The story has all the elements of an intriguing mystery and contains plenty of interesting detail about forensics. There is no problem with the plot.
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Also there are lots of cliches and some repetition, for example "Dead bodies piss me off," followed later by "As I said, dead bodies piss me off."
This looks like a good first draft. Fix some typos and get rid of most cliches. Give the reader an occasional rest from the nonstop daffiness, and try to incorporate more of the humor into the story itself, to keep things moving. Cut the repetition. There's no need to call the same person a "rat-bastard" three times.
The crime detail is good, and the story as a whole can be fun after it gets a little TLC.
4 comments:
You pulled no punches with your review!
I feel a duty to be honest and constructive to both the reader and the author. No one is well-served by glowing reviews of books that could be better.
Since this book was not self-published, I'd say the publisher's editor shares some of the blame for not pointing out such problems to the author. That's what editors are for.
Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
Cliches just seem to creep into a MS. My editor catches them even when I don't. Every writer needs an editor if they want to publish a book. No way I would go it alone.
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