“Killing Floor” by Lee Child is my first Lee Child book and the first in the Jack Reacher series. Jack is ex-military, so yes, this is a tough-guy thriller. And a page-turner it is. The opening starts with him being arrested as though he is a highly dangerous criminal. He knows he’s innocent and the whole first part of the book is about him trying to get out of jail (and the dangers of being in jail). Jack has become a self-declared drifter now that he is ex-military so it takes a few events and a sexy lady to convince him to help solve the local murder, mystery and mayhem.

The mystery plot itself is quite strong throughout the book, the pace is excellent. Jack is a tough-guy so there’s the usual suspension of disbelief required for various brawls, killings and fights. Most of it is handled pretty well, especially the first half. The author sets things up quite nicely with enough side plots that it’s never boring. The writing and descriptions, especially of handguns and fighting, are quite detailed and excellent. Many of the twists and turns were brilliant.

A few issues with the story kept this book from getting a higher rating. Jack is quite the “Encyclopedia Brown” multiple times during the story. Sometimes it works well; other times you’re left thinking, “well sure that theory fits, but I can think of half a dozen other ones just as plausible.” At the beginning when he does his Encyclopedia deductions, they are fairly harmless and believable; they setup his personality and the story. These early deductions are generally unimportant so you find no need to question them. However, as the story goes on, some of his “hunches” and deductions get a little too wild and way too accurate. Serendipity and luck starts to look pretty questionable. I was able to overlook these issues and still enjoy the story, but they did seem to crop up more and more often as the book neared the end. Perhaps worst of all, when one of the guilty parties was revealed, I just didn’t feel the setup was there nor the believability. It wasn’t that the answer was too pat, it was just that the tie-in wasn’t strong enough. Since there were multiple guilty parties, this flaw didn’t ruin the book, but it did disappoint me greatly because the rest of the culprits and their guilty actions were setup much better. There were absolutely brilliant clues and setups in this book, which unfortunately made those that weren’t, all the more obvious. A few other details that bothered me: Jack doesn’t shower often yet he does a lot of walking through muggy, hot weather…and it isn’t a huge problem with the sexy woman or with him. There’s a description of how he just throws clothes away and buys new ones rather than do laundry, but given activities that involved a lot of running, fighting, and blood this detail came across as blatantly ridiculous. I think he bought clothes twice. I also didn’t believe the explanation that he didn’t know how to do laundry and had never done it. Ever.

Most of the characterization in the book was quite strong, but at the end, a few relationships were wrapped up so quickly it felt pretty inconsistent with earlier actions and motivation. This wasn’t a huge thing, but again, the devil was in the details and sometimes the little things just didn’t add up.

Overall this is an exciting read. It’s easily strong enough to hold up as a beach read or a weekend jaunt away from reality. As a first novel, it’s damn good, and I suspect that in later novels some of the missing details or inconsistencies will not be as evident. It will also be interesting to see how the author develops Jack’s character. There is a lot of room for growth here. As a “hobo” character, the author will have a lot of play in settings and characters.

Elaine Viets has won both the Agatha and Anthony—her book, “Murder with Reservations,” is truly is reminiscent of Agatha Christie works—not too scary, but involving a murder. In the book, Helen Hawthorne stars as amateur sleuth while she cleans hotel rooms. The series is based on odd-jobs like this, all made probable because Helen is moving constantly as she hides out from her lousy ex-husband. In “Murder with Reservations” there are three mysteries really: Will Helen’s ex-husband find her and ruin her life (worse than it already is)? Will Helen figure out who killed her co-worker Rhonda? And last but not least, Will Helen find the money that an old bank robber might have left hidden in the hotel?

Viets weaves her plots around a somewhat unlikely character: Helen shows an amazing lack of spine when it comes to all three mysteries. She could face her ex-husband in court, but chooses not to. This is somewhat believable because, after all, Helen stayed married to the cheating scum for many years before leaving. Helen finds Rhonda’s body, which requires some nerve and fortitude…but then her character immediately returns to a faded, worried wall-flower to avoid being noticed by the police. The book is a mad combination of “I must do what is right” and “I must run away faster.”

I found the occasional strange analogy used by Viets rather disconcerting. Perhaps she shouldn’t write on an empty stomach:

“Her broad bosom was twin cabbages, her tight white hair was a cauliflower, and her powerful arms were blue-ribbon zucchini.”

It’s enough to put your off your vegetables for years. And it didn’t stop there.

Another woman was, “…an odd creature with a round white face like a cocktail onion.”

It wasn’t always vegetable matter: “The cheerios stared back at Helen like a heap of eyeless skulls.” Hmm. To each their own cheerio!

Helen does add two and two and uncovers the killer in the end; it is done in a very reasonable manner. Not only that, but the other mysteries and conflicts were resolved as well. All in all, I think cozy readers will find the book satisfying with its various plots, a side romance and the occasional red-herring.

I admit I only read “Monkey’s Raincoat,” the first Elvis Cole mystery by Robert Crais because I heard he had a book out that was all about Joe Pike, Cole’s sidekick. Now, never having read any of Crais’ work, you may wonder why I cared about the sidekick. Simple: Joe Pike was described in a review along the lines of: the tall, dark, mysterious man that takes care of the ugly business when needed. Ah, mysterious. Quiet. Takes care of business. I was intrigued.

Of course the first order of business was to familiarize myself with the characters in order to determine if Joe Pike was indeed going to be mysterious and interesting. “Monkey’s Raincoat” is definitely a tough guy book. It has the wise-cracking, hard drinking PI, only he’s pretty young and not really jaded by life. It has the beautiful ladies that predictably fall into Cole’s lap. Cole is a rather strange blend of the typical hardcore PI mixed with a protective, sensitive type. In my opinion, the protective attributes were overdone—for example, there was a scene in the book where Cole picks a potential fight with a jerk giving a waitress a hard time. Well, fine, that was nice of Cole, but it failed to fit into the larger story, and the character had already shown his protective instincts by taking on the case at hand, quite possibly for free.

Just what was the case at hand? A damsel in distress, of course. Ellen’s husband has disappeared, along with her nine-year-old son. Cole suspects that husband Mort has run off with another woman, only there seems to be a lot of people looking for this other woman. Things get a little tighter when Cole’s client, Ellen, disappears. It becomes clear that someone was after Mort and not because he was a nice guy. He either knew something or had something important. Cole does a good job of following the clues with a satisfactory number of well-done shootouts and narrow escapes.

The story is fast-paced and the plot is quite believable—corruption in Hollywood, drug deals and of course, murder. Likeable characters are important and Crais does a good job of providing them. In the first half, I was a little disappointed; the women were looking like cardboard props. In the second half Crais pushed out some of the extraneous characters and concentrated on filling out Ellen. He never deviated from her early personality, but he grew the character in a very realistic fashion. The book would not have worked had he failed to create a woman character as important as the PI. The story and the crisis, after all, were about Ellen. Had she not come to the forefront and become less than a prop, it would have been impossible for me to care about the outcome. Luckily Crais came through.

Perhaps the strangest part of the book was the “sensitivity” of Cole that ricocheted between knowing women well and missing by a mile. Maybe I’ve just never met a guy that was sensitive and knowledgeable enough that when packing for a woman remembers not only her toothbrush, but her deodorant, gathers running shoes and purposely collects an outfit that matches well. The same Cole, as an affectionate gesture, squeezed a friend’s butt as he departed an office setting (she was a professional career type that he visited for some information.) Uh, no. I cannot see it happening. Don’t try this one at the office guys.

All in all, Monkey’s Raincoat was a fun read—and yes, I am intrigued enough by Joe Pike to go and read that adventure. I’m looking forward to it. Crais fleshes out characters well when he wants to; the book, “The Watchman” A Joe Pike novel, should be a good read.