Tilt-a-Whirl

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: There isn't much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer's worth of rest and relaxation to help him forget the horrors of war. Instead, Ceepak will head up the murder investigation. He is partnered with Danny Boyle, a 24-year-old part-time summer cop who doesn't carry a gun and only works with the police by day so he has enough pocket money left over to play with his beach buddies show more at night. In the first novel in a new series written in the spirit of Carl Hiaasen's work, the Tilt-A-Whirl murder pushes Ceepak's deep sense of honor and integrity to the limits, as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.

My Review: A first-person narrative by the brilliant, damaged sleuth's awestruck sidekick. A murder richly deserved, a plot cleverly sewn to established behaviors of irreproachable characters, and a very dark and twisted resolution that provides restitution for many past wrongs, all for the price of an insalata caprese on a baguette with taro chips.

I started reading this free Kindle edition this afternoon, nursing a sore back and a bad mood. I stopped a few minutes ago, drew a deep breath, and said, "golly gee willikers, that was a corking experience!" (Ceepak rubbed off on me a little. It's only temporary. I hope.)

I was rather constantly reminded that Ceepak was modeled on Sherlock Holmes, in fact a wee bit heavy-handedly (the cigarette butt, the musical obsession, the lighthouse), but honestly it never made the story less enveloping. The town and the townie-sidekick made me appreciate Ceepak's character's Sherlockian traits. The more Danny, out narrator, talks, the more Ceepak learns and, importantly, teaches. The specific information Ceepak seeks about the locations of stuff around the little resort town is less important than is the lesson that Danny is being offered at every step. It's so well-done that I suspect readers can whip right past that piece of subtext and lose no speck of pleasure in following Ceepak around as he pulls threads and worrys knots and always, always obeys his orders. Even when they come from people who have no idea what they're doing.

The crime scene team at the scene of the murder is led by a revolting slob instead of a brilliant, world-renowned forensic scientist, who happens to be away on vacation when this crime is committed...the murder of a billionaire. Hard luck! It's so awful how things don't happen the right way, although the sloppy lead forensic guy probably gets a come-uppance offstage. Which kinda sucks, I'd really have enjoyed seeing him suffer...though I have some hopes he'll reappear to be a thorn in the side of our Dudley Dooright detective, this shell-shocked love child of Sherlock and Adrian Monk.

I'm all ready to be a big fan. I'm hoping I'll be as happy after I read the next one. Because I read this on the !*&$^^!%%#% Kindle, I can't quote the nice, dry asides and observations that Danny, our Watson-meets-Archie Goodwin, makes, but I smiled a lot, chuckle a good bit, and laughed out loud at least three times.

Yeah, four stars. That's fair. The extra fractions of a star get deducted for a few small breaks, like an attitude shift on Danny's part that goes from up to down to up again a bit too quickly; the resolution of the original red herring being a smidge on the done-and-dusted side; and a bit at the end with Ceepak doing something I found, well, forced and unnecessary.

None of which should even slow you down in your sprint to the Kindle store to spend a *whopping* ninety-nine cents to procure your lease on access to the file. Five hours happily spent making a new bestie? For a lousy buck? Be a devil, risk it!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less

Stayed up late reading Tilt A Whirl, the first John Ceepak mystery from Chris Grabenstein. Fortunately, I have the next two ready to go on the Kindle. I was taken in by the charming seaside community in New Jersey and the somewhat snarky tone of Danny, the narrator, and expected more of a cozy mystery. The ending was shockingly dark and shook both the reader and the characters. A well constructed mystery that showed how perceptions and assumptions can drive us to make mistakes.

This was some listen-while-I-mow-the-lawn material. No point in recounting the plot. Jeff Woodman, the narrator, does an absolutely masterful job with the character voices. The homeless lady on the beach was my favorite as he recreates her insulting Ceepak (a quite novel character: combination Boy Scout, Sherlock Holmes, and damaged vet.) Some of the parts are LOL funny; others border on pathos. I will definitely listen to the others in the series. It's one of those books that I think really benefits from a first-rate reader. Pretty good on its own, but made even better by the reader.

Sea Haven, on the New Jersey shore, is overrun by summer tourists and the most serious crime is a stole bike. One Saturday morning two local police officers, John Ceepak, a former MP, and Danny Boyle, a rookie part-timer, see a hysterical young girl covered in blood. She tells them her father was shot in the local amusement park. Ceepak is asked by his old army buddy who is now the Police Chief to head up the investigation into Reginald Hart’s murder and he also gives his word to Ashley, the young girl, that he’ll protect her from the danger which still surrounds her.

If you had told me that every time I pressed stop I’d be itching to get back to a single-body whodunit narrated by a 20-something party animal and featuring a show more goody-two-shoes ex-soldier who lives by a corny moral code I’d have given you the look. The “I don’t think you have a clue and thanks for nothing” look. But, based on the infinitesimally small chance I might be wrong, I accepted a passionate audio book recommendation from Belle (of Ms Bookish) and was thoroughly entertained from start to finish.

First I must mention that Jeff Woodman is a superb narrator: managing to give a completely different yet realistic sounding voice (complete with regional accent) to more than a dozen characters of different ages and genders. I have no doubt that his skill is part of the reason I so thoroughly enjoyed the book and had such vivid images of the setting and characters in my head.

I thought the choice of narrative voice in the story was a particularly good one. Using someone who is an observer and a participant in the action worked well, especially when combined with the fact that Danny Boyle is a rookie working with a more experienced policeman. This provided plausible opportunities for the kind of explanatory scenes and missed bits of action that can become clunky in first-person narratives. Danny also turned out to be a likable, engaging young man with a good sense of humour and the story unfolded quite naturally through his eyes.

The use of a ‘Duddley Do-Right’ style character in the form of John Ceepak (whose life motto is ‘neither lie nor cheat not steal nor tolerate those who do) is a risk because I cannot possibly be the only potential reader who is wary of such fantasies. However, even though he is too good to be truly credible, I found myself interested in his back story and smiling at his all around good-guy-ness and rooting for him to triumph over the bad guys. Maybe even natural born cynics like me need to take a day off from being jaded every once in a while.

Although there were some corny, predictable lines the broader story kept me guessing right to the end, the New Jersey Shore setting felt realistic, the characters were charming and overall it was the literary equivalent of a feel good movie. I’ll definitely be listening to the rest of this series (though unlike Belle who gobbled them all up at once I’m going to space them out). show less

An amusement park ride is the scene of the murder of a billionaire. Reginald Hart was "kind of like Donald Trump, only richer and without the gravity-defying comb-over. Plus now he's dead." The murder throws the barrier island town of Sea Haven into a panic, as tourists flee the area. "This is bad for business, worse than the riptide or pink jellyfish -- even worse than that shark in Jaws because, face it, to avoid the damn shark, all you really had to do was stay out of the water."

On the case are our narrator (1st person, present-tense) Danny Boyd -- a fun-loving 24-year-old summer hire on the local police force -- and his partner John Ceepak, a former Army MP just back from Iraq. Ceepak and Danny couldn't be more different in attitude show more or experience, though they share a love of Bruce Springsteen's music.

This was a very quick read. As you can see by my quotes, this started off as a fun read, with lots of quirky humor. But, further in, there's a definite serious side, too. The characters seemed a little stereotyped at first, but they grew on me. And having grown up near the Jersey shore, the setting was oh-so-familiar. "Sea Haven" may be fictional, but it's a lot like places I've been. Not highbrow literature, but a great way to spend some hours on a summer Sunday; and the ending packed a surprising punch. I'll almost certainly continue this series. show less

This mystery, the first in the John Ceepak series, was surprisingly good. It was darker than I expected, not just a cozy mystery, and the plot moved along at a good pace. The characters were interesting, and the two main ones were likable.

While this won't ever be classified as great literature, it's a great start to a mystery series, and I have already bought the next two.

Excellent story! I enjoyed it so much that I immediately purchased the next two in the series: "Mad Mouse" and "Whack-a-Mole." While these books are a light, fun read in many ways (certainly the humor is there), there is a dark undertone that keeps the stories grounded. The narrator and the main character are a lot more complicated than they seem at first, something that becomes clear the more you read.

This, the first of the series, spent a bit of time orienting the reader to the setting and the actors, but not in an intrusive way. I came away with an appreciation of the setting (a slightly-past-its-prime beach town in New Jersey) as well as the Afghanistan veteran with a Code cop and the narrator, an easygoing, smarter than he seems show more hometown boy who is just discovering the difference between drifting through life and having a purpose.

The story-- the murder of a millionaire at a ratty boardwalk amusement park before opening time, and in the presence of his young daughter, presents a satisfyingly complicated mystery with a sense of urgency. (Is the danger over? Where is the mysterious drifter seen in the area? Why does there seem to be more than meets the eye?)

As a fan of my own slightly-past-its-prime beach town, I truly loved the setting, even though I've never been to the Jersey Shore. Given what has happened to it recently, the secondary story-- trying to maintain the town and keep it viable-- seems all the more appealing. show less