FFB Review: The Case Of The Greedy Lawyers by Carl Brookins

 

You may not have been aware of it, but Minneapolis is the home of private detective Sean “No Middle Initial” Sean. Yes, you read that right. His first name is his last, he has no middle name, and maybe that is why he looks at everything just a little differently than most would. He’s short at just five foot three, known for wearing his red Keds even when wearing nothing at all, and is good at what he does no matter what the might be. He also has a sense of humor except when one of his clients gets murdered.

 

Except she really wasn’t his client. She drifted into his office one day, hardly said a word, told him she would have to give things some more thought and left. Sometime later she was found dead. For Sean, after being asked to identify the body, he isn’t ready to let the police take over. He begins to investigate with all trails leading back to a huge law firm with a name that sounds like many publishing houses all put together. As he digs, violence begins to erupt and it becomes clear that his wise talking PI is being used as a pawn in someone’s power game.

 

This book is a very enjoyable read from short to finish on two different levels. On one, it is a send up of all the classic detective novels. With allusions to other books and characters and how they would react, the read is often very funny. The author clearly has a knack for puns and delights in naming so many things after various publishing houses. Many of them seem to be villains in one form or another which increases the amusement factor especially for those working in the writing profession.

 

On another level, the read is a typical detective story with occasional violence, a beautiful woman in his life, and all the rest including a complicated and intriguing case that slowly becomes clear. The story line moves forward at a steady pace and features a character that is unique and entertaining. The misdirections are many and what appears obvious in the middle part of the novel is far from certain by the end.

 

The result is an entertaining roller coaster of a ride and one very good novel. A fun fast read; one can only hope that more adventures are planned for the detective with no middle initial.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Z0bvfr

 

I have no idea now, all these years later, how I got the read. It could have been as a library book as the Plano library system always had a lot of Five Star reads. It could have also come direct from the author as, back then, he and many authors were sending my print copies every week. How I got it is lost to the mists of time. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple © 2006, 2024

Guest Post: Carl Brookins on Change and Legacy

If you have not read books by Carl Brookins you have no idea what good stuff you are missing. I have been a huge fan of his for years now. Please welcome Carl to the blog today as he has a few thoughts about the inevitability of change and legacy…

Currently, the novel I’m promoting is titled The Inside Passage. It’s a sailing adventure that relates the story of one man’s transformation from a conservative, strait-laced hard-working businessman who always followed the rules, to a more self-sufficient, flexible individual who seeks justice through any fair means, while necessarily pushing the boundaries a bit. It’s a story of evolution and change.

Change will occur in January with the swearing in of a new president. In 1973 after my family moved back to the Twin Cities, we found a lovely piece of property on the bluffs of the upper St. Croix when the widow of a local farmer sold and moved her young family to a more hospitable location. We build a crude cabin and had an occasional garden. As the years passed a replacement for the crude cabin was necessary. We mounted a project involving a group of friends and erected a geodesic dome after a design by Buckminster Fuller and supplied as a pre-cut package by a local company. Time passed and we acquired a gas-fired refrigerator, a propane range and built a sleeping loft. Long rope swings from mature oaks allowed the growing gaggle of children to swing excitedly out and back over the brush and snow-clogged ravine.

The passing of the years saw the farmer who leased the open fields for crops and pasture go into retirement and the land went fallow. We continued to host rural weekend camping parties for scores of colleagues and friends, roasting whole hogs, sides of beef and birds over open pit fires built of the downed oak trees from our little preserve. Friends brought beloved pets to bury in remote areas of our forest grove and we skied the narrow deer trails, hauled water and firewood on toboggans by snowshoe and marveled at the solitude and even the random snowmobile tracks of trespassing neighbors. A few hunters helped keep the wild life in check.

With the departure of our tenant farmer, we decided to re-forest the open fields. We acquired thousands of white pine and red oak seedlings and over yet another weekend of partying, with help from the DNR and a local farmer who supplied a tractor, we consumed great quantities of beer, ate steaks and hamburgers and with many friends, planted sweeping groves of trees, trees which have now grown to forest-sized maturity visible from space, trees that are re-enriching the land to what it once was after the glaciers receded. 

Now, years have passed and we grow older and less able to tramp through the underbrush and up the steep bluffs. We have decided to sell the land, a place I visit only occasionally now, yet one filled with fine and rich memories of children growing, of family outings, tenting and tussling with sleeping bags and cooking gear, of carpentry, and hide and seek. I recognize the flowers that blossomed and enriched our lives, even for only a single season. I hear from the hunters who ranged across the open fields and accept their thanks and recognition for the good memories are what remain.

The land will soon belong to the state and become a part of one of Minnesota’s fine state parks which abut our property on two sides. We hope the state will remove the little detritus left which reveals the occupancy of those who benefited from that land, and we will see nature continue to reclaim its rightful own.

Yesterday we received the expected certified letter signifying that the state will exercise its option to purchase the property in question and our names will be inscribed on the title abstract as former owners. Fences and signs will appear and we will become subject to the state park rules like all citizens of the state.

Another milestone has passed, another family change carefully executed. It is the passage of time, the rotation of the stars, the inner adjustments of life, inevitable and inexorable. Although I now rarely visit this land, this anchor to windward, I will miss its presence, the sure knowledge it was there to be enjoyed, when it is gone.

Carl Brookins ©2016

Before he became a mystery writer and reviewer, Carl Brookins was a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Brookins and his wife are avid recreational sailors. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Private Eye Writers of America. He can frequently be found touring bookstores and libraries with his companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave.

He writes the sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney. The third novel is Old Silver. His new private investigator series features Sean NMI Sean, a short P.I. The first is titled The Case of the Greedy Lawyers. Brookins received a liberal arts degree from the University of Minnesota and studied for a MA in Communications at Michigan State University.

http://www.carlbrookins.com/

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@carlbrookins

FFB Review: "Old Silver--A Michael Tanner & Mary Whitney Mystery" by Carl Brookins

If all has gone right this post has appeared shortly after midnight and that means it is Friday. That means it is time for Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by the wonderful Patti Abbott over at http://pattinase.blogspot.com/ It has been a pleasure to be part of things on her blog.…

Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney return in this top flight cozy mystery set for most part on the waters of Lake Superior.  It is there that while sailing with friends Mary Whitney during a snorkeling trip finds and brings to the surface an old metal plate, probably from the boiler, stamped with the word “Amador” on it.  Little does she know that it comes from a ship that sank during a storm in 1905 and theoretically went down somewhere off Sand Island which is nowhere near where she has recovered the plate.

Packed with cargo and family heirlooms of the deVoles the sinking caused a search to be mounted more than once but nothing was found.  By finding the plate, Mary has stumbled across an old mystery and possibly a reference point for the shipwreck.  The ship went down 100 years ago taking some dark secrets with it.  As Mary and Michael start asking a few questions and a person cataloging a recent donation of papers from the family is killed, it becomes clear that there is certainly at least one if not several secrets that someone is trying to keep hidden. Whomever is behind the scenes orchestrating events seems to be willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to prevent them from coming out.

Opposite in tone and style from his novel, The Case of the Greedy Lawyers, humor is in short supply in this cozy style novel.  Most of the violence happens off scene with the majority of the focus on asking questions from a variety of sources and suspects.  This novel slowly builds a chain of clues together as Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney hunt for the shipwreck itself as well as the family secrets.  Old Silver--A Michael Tanner & Mary Whitney Mystery is an engrossing 259 page read in large paperback with a great depth of detail, rich characterizations, and a very good mystery tale.

Old Silver--A Michael Tanner & Mary Whitney Mystery

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com

Top Publications, Ltd. Co

2005

Large Trade Paperback

ISBN# 1-929976-32-1

Kevin R. Tipple © 2006, 2012