Jeffrey M. Poole

cozy-mystery, corgi, missing-persons, relics, theft, London, law-enforcement, situational-humor, verbal-humor, amateur-sleuth, antics, siblings, suspense, series*****

Zack, Jillian, Sherlock and Watson find themselves spirited off to London to visit the Queen and try to find Jillian's missing brother who is working with MI-6 to locate missing artifacts. Lots of surprises, and not all of them desirable, but all are extremely interesting!
How can you NOT love the books in this series?! show more Especially when they are interpreted by popular voice artist Bob Johnson?

The stories do NOT have to be read in any kind of order as the author catches you up on the salient points with each book. show less

Synopsis:
Zack is a recent widower who inherits a house and some land in Oregon from a distant relative. Since he is mourning the death of his wife he decides that starting over somewhere else is the best thing he can do for himself. So, he moves. Almost immediately he has a corgi dog named Sherlock foisted on him and he also is accused of murder.
He and Sherlock must prove that Zack is innocent of the crime.

My rating: 4/5

I want to be clear here that my rating is based on my reading enjoyment show more and not necessarily how amazingly written the book was.
The mystery actually wasn't all that great. And, since it is a mystery I completely understand if that is kind of a turn off to people.
But, I absolutely loved the characters and particularly the authorial voice.
I loved Zack and Sherlock. I really enjoyed the exploration of the relationship between them. Particularly as Zack had never owned a dog before.
I appreciated how deep of a character Zack was. I don't often see a male protagonist in cozy mysteries and especially one who was sensitive and deep. His mourning for his wife touched my heart and Zack just seems like a nice guy. It is so refreshing to see a sensitive male character written by a male writer.
I loved following him.
If you love character driven stories and dogs then I recommend trying this book.
If you need an amazing mystery then this probably isn't' for you. It wasn't terrible. It was fine but the mystery itself didn't knock my socks off. The characters did and for me that was enough to make me eager to read more. show less

The book gets off to a rocky start. The language is awkward, the description (and the situations themselves) cursory. There are frequent and unposted changes of point of view. Much of the plotting is perfunctory, and in fact, the book often reads more like a description of someone's role playing game than as a true story - there are lots of puzzles to solve, and very little actual risk.

That said, the story is engaging and interesting - enough that I wish the supporting writing had been show more stronger. I'd be interested to find out what happens, which is at least one sign of a good story.

I'm not sure, though, that I'd be willing to read another. For one thing, the characterization has pretty strong overtones of machismo, homophobia, and outright sexism. For example, the male protagonist suddenly realizes he's holding a man's hand, and hastily lets go. His wife, in the unfortunate Heinlein/Jordan tradition, is smarter and more capable than he is, but needs protection from the harsh realities of the world. In the 1950s and 60s, this was the norm. It's not now, and it's a bit hard to take. In addition, there are fairly frequent consistency errors, errors of language (compliment/complement), and copy-editing that's not the best.

Immediately after I finished reading, I was interested to see what was next. On brief reflection, I'm not as enthused, for the reasons above.

Overall, a decent, fast-moving, and fun exploration of fantasy wish-fulfillment, but substantially held back by poor editing and outdated attitudes. show less

The book gets off to a rocky start. The language is awkward, the description (and the situations themselves) cursory. There are frequent and unposted changes of point of view. Much of the plotting is perfunctory, and in fact, the book often reads more like a description of someone's role playing game than as a true story - there are lots of puzzles to solve, and very little actual risk.

That said, the story is engaging and interesting - enough that I wish the supporting writing had been show more stronger. I'd be interested to find out what happens, which is at least one sign of a good story.

I'm not sure, though, that I'd be willing to read another. For one thing, the characterization has pretty strong overtones of machismo, homophobia, and outright sexism. For example, the male protagonist suddenly realizes he's holding a man's hand, and hastily lets go. His wife, in the unfortunate Heinlein/Jordan tradition, is smarter and more capable than he is, but needs protection from the harsh realities of the world. In the 1950s and 60s, this was the norm. It's not now, and it's a bit hard to take. In addition, there are fairly frequent consistency errors, errors of language (compliment/complement), and copy-editing that's not the best.

Immediately after I finished reading, I was interested to see what was next. On brief reflection, I'm not as enthused, for the reasons above.

Overall, a decent, fast-moving, and fun exploration of fantasy wish-fulfillment, but substantially held back by poor editing and outdated attitudes. show less