Craig McLay

Fun and interesting setting and characters (though the names were more caricatures than I liked and almost had me reject the story at the start). Alas, the random nature of events and a seeming lack of a coherent plot prevented this from truly coming together to be a solid book. The characters kept me reading to the end, but I can't grade it higher than 3 stars because the core story was as meandering and undirected as the POV character.

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Village Books is a local institution…which is good, because most of the staff probably belong in one.

There’s the manager, Dante Andolini, who’s hiding more than just his hypochondria from his overbearing mother…Sebastian Donleavy, whose hedonistic lifestyle is two rails short of being on the rails…Aldous Swinghammer, whose philosophical eccentricities have not been the biggest hit with the ladies…Ebeneezer Chipping, whose crotchety exterior show more hides a burning passion for the Spanish émigré next door…Mina Bovary, whose crazy husband may have just gone AWOL with an arsenal of fragmentary explosive devices…and the store’s long-suffering assistant manager, who is spinning his wheels in retail while he waits for something better to come along.

That something better may be new assistant manager Leah Dashwood, an aspiring actress with an ambitious plan to transform the store and its staff in a way that will turn their carefully disordered world on its head. Will the store survive? Will it be bought over by its evil corporate competition? All questions will be answered (but not necessarily in that order) in this hilarious debut novel.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt, the thirtieth, was a "double-dip" and frankly I don't care what they picked, I was ready for this game to be over last week.

This is a first novel, and it's not too awful terrible well-constructed on a plot level. Too many things are dropped, then re-appear; too many people are shuffled from pillar to post and then needed back at pillar so whoopsie-daisy there they are. Motivations are, to put it mildly, unclear.

But you know what? I liked the characters. I liked the crazy bookstore people. I laughed out loud several times:

Trying to make her angry is like trying to find a corner on a bowling ball.
***
He went to India to "find himself" last year, but evidently he wasn't there, and he came back empty-handed.

Most of the humor isn't pull-quotable because it requires some familiarity with the situation. No matter, it was amusing, and several things rang very true. The Irish publican who served a drink called "the Englishman's Tits" to people he doesn't like. It's a shuddersome decoction. It involves beets.

So I meandered through the plot holes, I skipped over the male fantasy-fulfillment stuff, I sighed in mild annoyance at the pat ending. And I enjoyed a few hours of uncomplicated pleasantries exchanged among people I thought needed a swift kick. I'm not going to tell you to break your thumbs one-clicking it, but believe me it's got a little something extra to reward the tired, smile-hunting Kindle reader.


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More like 4.5 stars. I am always worried when I read books told in the First Person because sometimes the voice is not clear & also becomes a bit of a turn off. And sometimes, it takes a while to fall into the story if it's told by a narrator that doesn't have an engaging tone. None of that was the case for me while I read this book. I really liked the narrator & thought he was quite witty. The story was told colorfully & I felt a connection with the characters he related in the telling. I show more must admit that I've not read too many books where you never learn the narrator's name but it is a refreshing device when done well, as it is here. After the opening, I realized that I didn't know it & kept an eye out for it until the end. I cared about him so much, I still want to know this dude's name! I can only say that I find that a good character portrayal.

The story isn't so much about any one thing than a telling of a time in the narrator's life and what events took place that propelled him to the next stage in life. That happens for all the characters & some locations in the story and it happens in believable ways. I must admit that I worried for a long time how his relationship with Leah would resolve. Dante was great & I was happy for his ending. Sebastian & Aldous made me laugh a lot. Lolita, Mother Teresa & Miroslav had smaller parts but I felt that those were integral to the story & enjoyed them. I completely loved how the brick found in the back of the book shop was brought back into the story & tied to one of the characters & the unexpected twist that led to. Well done!

There were too many highlight worthy, quotable bits in this book and this will definitely be one of the best books I've read in 2012 (I've read more than a few). Don't let its being an indie deter from the opportunity to sit down and read it. I saw two typos but I've seen that many in professionally published works. Everything else is pristine. Especially the prose. I look forward to reading more from McLay. show less

Tim investigates insurance claims in a world where humans and monsters of the supernatural variety live together. This supernatural fantasy detective story is fun and clever on multiple levels, and the first case Tim is given to investigate is a doozy.

If you like movies like Ghostbusters or Men in Black, or the absurd fantasy style of Pratchett, then this book might be for you. I enjoyed it, for the most part. But I had questions by the end. Without giving too much away. Tim and his friends show more infiltrate a gang in an attempt to save one of their own, but the author leaves how they were able to do it a complete mystery. And that, for me, was a disappointment. show less