Jeff Soloway

The dangers in travel are legion, ranging from poisonous vipers and spiders that may lurk in the corners of your hotel room to hurricanes or reckless drivers that await you outdoors. But possibly the most dangerous are the people who prey upon the ignorant or gullible. This danger is compounded if you don't speak or understand the local language. Then, you don't ever really know what is going on around you. One imagines: Are those people talking about me? They sound angry; are they going to show more attack each other? Me? Did I negotiate a reasonable fare with the taxi driver? Is he taking me far out of the way in order to rack up the fare? Is this sandwich really costing me $10.00 or did I convert the currency incorrectly? Veteran travelers must have the confidence that they will be able to deal with any situation that arises or they will slowly drive themselves crazy!

Travel literature is built on the trials and misadventures of those who have ventured beyond the safety and predictability of pre-packaged tours. It features the conflicts and personal achievements and failures that are built into the experience of travel. This is perfect fodder for an adventuresome detective story and The Travel Writer, A Mystery, by Jeff Soloway, takes full advantage while remaining true to the tropes of detective mysteries - a cynical, wise-cracking old hand, an innocent but eager foil, some sly and cunning double-dealing villains, a couple of misbegotten love interests and enough red herrings to keep the reader guessing.

The story features Jacob, a freelance travel writer who has been relegated to out-of-the-way South American locales that are overlooked by most travelers. He is invited by his ex-girlfriend to come to Bolivia and ostensibly review a hotel for which she is the PR agent, but actually to solve the mystery of the disappearance from the hotel of another travel writer, Hilary. The first we learn about Jacob's character is that he is witty, but corrupt and a liar, a perfect pulp-fiction detective! He also has a Walter Mitty streak, frequently imagining himself as the hero and saving the day while enjoying the freebies he wheedles out of a four-star hotel. The ex, Pilar, is beautiful, as befits a love interest. The foil, Kenny, is a dorky gofer in the publishing company that employs Hilary. He is in love with Hilary because once she paid a little bit of attention to him, so he insists on accompanying Jacob, bringing with him an Idiot's Guide to speaking Spanish.

As the main characters are introduced the reader is treated to some snarky and quite humorous comments about various archetypical places and characters. Among others, there are a sarcastically portrayed overbearing editor and an Archie Bunker type who is appalled by the strangeness and discomfort of anything foreign and who is sure that all unexplained events are part of a governmental conspiracy. The plane flight from Miami to La Paz, Bolivia, offers further opportunities for snide commentary on customs forms, airplane seating, flight attendants, fellow passengers, and de-planing procedures.

Once in Bolivia the mystery and danger deepen, but the commentary continues. The result is a novel that frequently feels like a light humorous beach-time read but occasionally the mood unexpectedly veers into the existential angst of meditations on death and the emptiness of it all, as one would expect from a jaded detective or journalist. This makes for a satisfying read and I look forward to further installments of the series!

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( 4 stars ) show less

The Travel Writer by Jeff Soloway is a recommended debut mystery series featuring Jacob Smalls as a smart aleck travel guide writer turned sleuth. When veteran American travel editor Hilary Pearson is missing and presumed kidnapped from the Matamoros, a Bolivian Hotel, Pilar Rojas, the PR agent and an old friend of Smalls contacts him. Pilar offers Smalls an all-expense paid trip to the Bolivian resort if he will just write a complementary piece about the hotel.

Smalls admits, "I’m a show more travel writer, and corrupt as they come. I’d sell my journalistic principles for two nights at the Four Seasons with a free meal and a massage. I’ve been wheedled and bribed and plied with bottles of wine worth more than my laptop, and I’ve rarely failed to succumb to the temptation of providing a puff review. But I was not entirely without ambition. That afternoon I had for the first time inspired hate, not just disdain, from a hotel employee—if that’s what Gonzales was. I had stumbled onto something, perhaps a crime worth uncovering, or at least a story worth writing about." (Location 142)

All Pilar wants is a shill to write the pro-Matamoros propaganda piece, but Smalls decides to investigate Hilary's disappearance with some help from Kenny, a goofy, naive co-worker of Hilary's who is sure they have a relationship. Smalls is a rather hapless, but clever narrator who displays plenty of self-deprecating humor and some interesting descriptions and outlooks on life. He's hardly anyone's first choice for an investigator. “What makes you think you can find her?” she asked. “The FBI couldn’t. You’re just a guidebook writer.” Guidebook writers are the peasantry of travel writers. Apparently my magazine work hadn’t caught Lisa’s attention, which wasn’t surprising. It hadn’t caught anyone else’s." (Location 323)

While the actual plot isn't full of suspense or intrigue, the beauty and fun in Soloway's debut novel is in his laugh aloud descriptions:
"I slipped the clerk my passport, and he hammered my name, two-fingered, into his computer keyboard, pausing for one heartbeat between each letter, perhaps to facilitate the computer’s comprehension of the outlandish 'Jacob Smalls.'"
Or "Her placid eyes widened in respect, as if she’d been told he owned a unicorn."

The Travel Writer is an entertaining start to a new series. I laughed along with Smarts and liked him. Now let's hope he has a more intriguing, tough mystery/crime to solve in his next outing.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House via Netgalley for review purposes. show less

The Last Descent is about a writer, Jacob Smalls, who is invited to the grand opening of a massive luxury hotel built near the Grand Canyon. Expansion of the hotel to include shops, theaters, parking lots, even a festival street in the small desert town, has riled a cadre of environmentalists who are concerned about the impact on the Grand Canyon's water sources. However, the project is backed by a family from Vegas, rumored to be connected to the mob, and they have the controversy well show more under control, at least up to the point where a journalist, investigating the environmentalists' claims, is found dead off a rocky canyon trail.

Was it an accidental fall? Was the victim pushed? The local constabulary may be under the thrall of the Vegas financiers and Jacob tries to discover the truth himself. The answer actually is not clear cut because Jacob's perceptions and thoughts on the matter are not necessarily to be trusted - his love affairs with several of the women at the event may be clouding his judgement.

Unfortunately, those love affairs diminish the potential for a satisfying and believable story because, in them, Jacob is depicted as a weak, unstable individual. Much of the story focuses on him mooning over the various women, acting like a love-besotted hormonal adolescent who has taken reality TV bachelors as role models for how one should act when in the throes of lust love. This is a complete turn-around from the character's depiction when he was introduced in Jeff Soloway's previous novel - The Travel Writer. In that book, he was portrayed as a cynical, corrupt, wise-cracking old hand who, as he went about solving a disappearance, was beleaguered by a dorky gofer who was infatuated with the missing person. In that story, the melodramatic twaddle worked because the gofer acted as a foil, providing incidents in which the hero could display his level-headedness and skill. However, in The Last Descent, while characterizing the protagonist as emotionally unstable complicates the mystery for the reader by throwing doubt upon Jacob's logic and conclusions, it also causes him to lose any cachet as the hero of the story.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. (1½ stars ) show less

I have spent hours agonizing over how to write a review for this book. It's brilliant, and I fear I cannot do it justice no matter what I say, but I shall try my best. First, yes this isn't going to be worded like most of my other reviews simply because this is completely unlike any book I've read thus far. It is a thrilling mix of satire, mystery, and a terrifying glimpse into a future that might yet come to pass. You'll be hooked immediately and before you know it you'll be knee deep in show more political intrigue and murder. I'll definitely be reading the first two books in the series!

received as a gift show less