|
Publisher:
Publish America |
Release
Date: December 2003 |
ISBN:
1-4137-0309-7 |
Awards:
|
Format
Reviewed: Softcover |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Fantasy / Mystery |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer:
Kristin Johnson |
Reviewer
Notes: Reviewer, Kristin Johnson, released her second book,
CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins,
in October 2003. Her third book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible
Spiritual, Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with
Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D., is now available from Publish
America. |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
|
Fractured
By Ryan Mayers
You
have to hand it to kids today: they’ve grown up reading Harry
Potter and watching “NYPD Blue,” and the result is the
synthesis of magic and hard-boiled police fiction in a mystery called
Fractured. Rotten kids. Even when their novels boast sour-note
clichés and turns of phrase (“If time flies when you’re
having fun, it really flies when you’ve screwed up something
big. Or when you throw your clock gets thrown out the window…”)
that any self-respecting creative writing teacher would red pen
in a minute; they still produce work that should shame James Patterson
or the pabulum that passes for most Hollywood blockbusters. Maybe
the creative writing teachers aren’t red penning the work
of the younger generation because they’re too busy working
on literary novels about the tortured affair they had with their
creative writing teachers. Sorry, people, there’s only one
Blue Angel by Francine Prose.
Forget
derivative literary pseudo-LOLITA wannabes. Ryan Mayers delivers
the most truly original mystery I’ve read this year. Somebody
give this young “poor college student studying math”
(yes, math) “and education,” whose own bio states his
wish to “eventually be able to warp the minds of the next
generation as a teacher,” a MacArthur Fellowship. If you can
take traditional nursery rhymes such as Old Mother Hubbard and turn
the good bare-cupboard lady into the Heidi Fleiss of the imaginary
parallel-Earth world of Breco, that’s talent.
Detective
John Monroe, a spiritual dead ringer for Mike Hammer or Andy Sipowicz---or
so we think---uncovers a JFK-esque plot to assassinate the King
during the King’s annual visit. When partner Humpty Dumpty
falls off the wall, Dumpty’s not the only thing in Breco that
all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t
put back together again. It falls to John Monroe to make sure his
good egg partner didn’t die in vain. However, something smells
of rotten eggs in the state of Breco, and the corrupt odor just
might come from Monroe himself. Although the “good cop gone
bad” scenario is comfortably familiar, Mayers’ wicked,
fresh imagination makes this edgy definitely-not-for-kids bedtime
story succeed. |