Two good authors don't make a great write (Double Homicide - Faye Kellerman, Jonathan Kellerman)

Member Name: freediveheaven

Product:	Double Homicide - Faye Kellerman, Jonathan Kellerman
Date:	29/09/05 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Very Poor

I guess that in preparation for the new product suggestion system those nice people in the Dooyoo office have been having a spring / autumn clean s I suggested this book about four months ago so I was a bit surprised when the e-mail notification arrived in my mail box yesterday. Still at least now I can warn others who might make the same mistake I did.

On the face of it this looked an excellent deal, two great authors for the price of one. I have long been a fan of Jonathan Kellerman and I have also read a couple of his wife Faye work and they have been pretty good as well. So when I spotted a chance to buy a book containing two stories which represent their first joint collaboration I thought to myself how can this fail to please? Well the answer to that is surprisingly easy.

The Storylines

Double Homicide has two unconnected murders in two separate cities. Each story has it's own cover, an orange one for Santa Fe and a blue one for Boston to reflect the temperatures of the two locations.

Double Homicide Boston features Boston detectives Dorothy Breton and Mick McCain and focuses on the death of a young man in a Boston disco. The deceased turns out to be a talented college basketball player and with mistrust of the police amongst the black community there are few witnesses to the incident in the club. To complicate matters Breton, a single mother of two black teenagers, has problems at home to deal with. Her eldest son was a player in the game that was the catalyst for the trouble at the club and that morning she had caught her younger son is possession of a firearm.

Worried about the prevalence of guns and wanting to prevent either of her sons being a victim of gun crime Breton and McCain are determined to clear the high profile case however the case which at first appears relatively straight forward take a dramatic twist once medical evidence starts to raise a whole new area of investigation which opens a window onto the win at all costs attitude within college sport where careers can mean huge riches for all involved.

Double Homicide Santa Fe takes place on the opposite coast and features Steve Katz and Darrel Two Moons. It is the rather exotically names Two Moons who is the more interesting of the two after changing his name to reflect his native ancestry.

Their murder case again is another high profile one as it involves investigating the murder of a wealthy and well known art dealer Larry Olfson who has been found murdered in a brutal and almost stylized way almost as if his death is a work of art itself.

As with the first novel there are a number of twists to the storyline which takes both detectives on a journey into the seedier side of art and the dark secrets that many of these talented people try to keep hidden.

The Opinion

On the face of it you have the potential for two good novels however this is not the reality.

There are a number of reasons for this. The first is in the fact that neither story makes it past the 200 page mark. Whilst they are not short stories they certainly fall short when it comes to detail. It almost feels as though the authors had a couple of stories that did not develop fully so they struck on the idea of putting them together into one book hoping to make sales on the back of their famous names, which in my case they did.

Santa Fe is the stronger of the two and the more entertaining as they is al least the threat of an additional murder running through the storyline while Boston does not really have anywhere to go beyond a rather traditional plot line. Even with Santa Fe the ending has a rushed feel to it and a rather unsatisfying one at that.

There is little character development in either book and certainly nothing that would make me want to pick up a novel featuring any of the characters covered, certainly these compare poorly with the Delaware / Sturgis characters that Jonathan Kellerman is best know for.

On the whole this was a very disappointing purchase and smacks of two good authors churning out any old rubbish, bit like my reviews really. The rrp or this is £6.99 but I would not recommend that you spent anywhere near that amount on it if after reading this review you still plan to buy it. Published by Headline.

Thanks for reading my review.

Summary: Two books in one.