Michael Craft (1) (1950–)

This was a fun light mystery. There were a lot of fun characters, although I found Dante himself a bit annoying. I liked the partnership of Jazz and Dante and see a lot of potential for future books featuring the duo. I feel like the author did a good job of capturing the culture of Palm Springs and the people who live and vacation there. The mystery itself was OK. I didn't figure out who did it before the reveal, but I really didn't care too much about it either. Overall, it was a fun book show more to read by the side of the pool during pride month. show less

Michael Craft really knows how to write a proper mystery. The stakes are as high as they can be, there are enough red herrings to make Agatha herself proud, and the characters are flawed and believable. There's a little bit of dramatic irony, but not enough to keep you ahead of the characters, and the parts that seem to be turn out to be herrings. Even the amorous encounters are part of the plot. Nicely done. This is the type of book you just want to plow through to find out the whodunnit!

Whoa, that's about the craziest whodunnit ever - I totally didn't see that coming. Craft warns the reader in the beginning that this will break with convention, but I didn't expect this! Had some qualms about the police's reaction to the killer's identity, but otherwise a really good read. Too bad this is the last in the series. I'll miss Mark and Neil!!

I'm not a big fan of stories told in the ever present present (What is that called?!) Any way, I find it rather distracting to read.

However, once I got past that little problem, I found the mystery and the characters to be engaging and interesting; well worth my time to read this book. I'll keep an eye out for more of Craft's stuff in future reading.