Thursday 18 November 2021

G. L. RIX - BROWN (2019)


Synopsis/blurb ....

Name: Brown (just Brown, ma’am)  

Physical Appearance/Demeanor: Bear (That’s grizzly - consider yourself warned.) 

Occupation: Private Dick 

Clients: 

San Antonio’s Finest 
Area’s most notorious gang boss 
Hitmen 
World renowned artists 
Olmos Elementary School entire third grade class
 
Cases: 

Find some body and return them to their forever home.
Find wife-beating boyfriend before contracted hitman does.
Perform background checks on the bad guys.
Find lost animals.
Most admired: Columbo 

Brown: Private Eye - At Your Service

Some you win, some you lose. One plus was I got to spend some time in the company of entertaining narrator Theo Holland, even if the words that spewed from his lips left me indifferent.

We started off ok. Our main character is a PI named Brown and he is in a car park with the corpse of a grafitti artist. And then it all went downhill.

One case, kind of slid into another, then another, followed by a different one. There was no real drama, tension, mystery, humour or intrigue. It was all pretty pointless. A total mess that led nowhere, unfortunately. 

The writing was ok. The main character and some of the underlings were interesting enough as individuals, or might have proved to be if there was any real purpose to their movements. There wasn't. There was some scope for drama between Brown and Mrs Casey. There was a real spark of sexual chemistry that offered some possible respite from the rest of the nonsense the book was, but that went unconsumated and the opportunity was lost.

Oh well. I won't die wondering. I liked the cover. I didn't hate the book, I just kind of wondered the whole point of it was. Writing for writing's sake. 

Rix has written a second book, Browner which I won't be touching. I think a better title for this one would have been Brown Stuff.  


2 from 5 

Read - (listened to) November, 2021
Published - 2019
Page count - 168 (5 hrs 25 mins)
Source - Audible
Format - Audible

2 comments:

  1. Hmm....I do like a PI novel, Col. But it sounds as though there wasn't a major plot point to drive the story, if I can put it that way. Sorry to hear that this one didn't work for you, because some of the ingredients sounded interesting. As you say, it doesn't always happen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Can't win them all Margot. Fair to say I was a tad disappointed by it.

      Delete