First off! I was scared when I saw this book was longer than the first and I remembered the pacing issue I had with it at times.
Bottom line on pacing? I had nothing to worry about. I also was a bit timid, wondering if this was going to be very formulaic in the end, and of course, there should be something consistent in mysteries/crime, but I pretty much had nothing to worry about. I would say this work was the perfecting of his first book in this quartet and I CANNOT wait to read the third one now. I was on the edge of my seat the last 75 pages or so, and I was actually super mad and was going to give a piece of my mind over something that crushed my soul that happened in the book [no spoilers so you’ll have to read and guess what part it was] but he just did right by the readers and everything fell into place and instead of getting mad I was doing some odd jazz hands because I was too tired to let out a fangirl squeal. Pros: Cons: I can’t really find too many faults with this one, I’ve given it five stars on GoodReads and added it to my favorites shelf, I thought he fixed every problem I had with The Axeman’s Jazz and I can’t wait until my library gets the third book of the City Blues Quartet; The Mobster’s Lament, coming out March 21 in the UK, it’s set in New York this time and we’ll be dealing with Castello and having Ida and Michael continue on as the two main protagonists. (The 3rd Skull in the featured image is the one that will be on the cover of The Mobster’s Lament) |
5 replies on “Dead Man’s Blues”
Can it be read as a standalone or is this something you need to read as a series? I’m intrigued by the premise, but I don’t know if I want to read through something that wasn’t as good first.
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The one before this was his debut, and I still gave it four stars but the pacing was annoying so luckily…This can definitely be read as a standalone, in fact there’s not much reference to the first and anything that he does mention that happened in the first book he explains it and it’s like maybe a couple of things
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I am so glad to know you were able to enjoy reading this book so much! It sounds like this one was such a step up from the first book and like the author realised that they had a pacing problem and decided to pick it up and work on it a lot more 🙂 I am glad you could enjoy it and I love the cover 🙂
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Aw thanks 🙂 and I think he realized it too, so yay for that! lol!
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