Rating: 
Summary: Bet On Dooling
Review: Doolings new book continues to display his imagination, intelligence and gift for making the seemingly mundane (an insurance company fraud division in *yawn* Omaha Nebraska) interesting. As a National Book Award finalist people seem to constantly be expecting Dooling to only right "important" books with heavy social comentary. This book is heavy on the latter and displays Doolings continued wide range of things which intruige him. Some people get confused by this diverity mistaking it for inconsistency. Consistency is of course contrary to nature, contrary to life and the last reguge of the unimaginative. Maslin's New York Times review of this book (praising it) was especially helpful and Dooling has a link to it on his web sight.
If a literary guy wants to write a mystery, good for him. This is especially true when it is and interesting and funny page turner as "Bet Your Life". Doolings ironic recounting of insurance fraud scams along with a diverse cast of characters make this an unsettling, compelling read as you laugh and squirm while reading about fraud, sexual fantasy, death and whire collar crime. This is a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: slow and convoluted
Review: Granted, making insurance seem interesting or even exciting takes special skills but this book makes you force yourself to pay attention. Not a good thing. There is nothing particularly interesting about the protagonist Carver Hartnett who pines after his co-worker Miranda for too many pages.When Lenny, a co-worker of Carver and Miranda who has some risky personal habits, dies under mysterious circumstances, Carver sets to find out what happened. Despite's Dooling's attempts to create witty banter among the friends, I just didn't care enough to know what happened to Lenny who had no apparent traits to justify Carver and Miranda's loyalty to him. In addition, Carver doesn't come off as very bright in many of his actions. It's hard to sympathize with such a character. Plodding dialogue with occasional religious references also slow the story down. I can't recommend this one.
Rating: 
Summary: a reader
Review: I could not put this book down. I never thought the insurance industry was fodder for a page-turner crime novel, but I really enjoyed it. The plot charges along and as always, Dooling's characterizations & asides are hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: a dud
Review: I liked the two other Dooling books I read, but this one is a dud. The characters are repellent, the plot boring, and the "mystery" uninteresting. The scenes stretch on seemingly forever. There is an excessive and tiresome amount of insurance-industry and computer-programming detail. Forget this one.
Rating: 
Summary: what a disappointment!
Review: I'd probably give this just one star if not for the author's proven brilliance with his first two books. I think that Dooling's efforts to incorporate a relatively large number of characters have backfired... there's no real distinction between most of them, and I didn't find myself giving a damn about any of them. In the acknowledgments, the author writes: "I thank (names) - IT cyber wizards one and all - for (...) suggesting ways I could pretend to have more than an amateur's grasp of computer technology." I think this may be the root of the problem with this book... Dooling's first two novels reflected deep personal experience, and a deep personal understanding of the subject matter at hand. Unfortunately, this time Dooling is obviously just pretending... he still has only "an amateur's grasp of computer technology", and his efforts to pretend otherwise ruin this as a novel. And viaticals aren't quite as new or scandalous as the author would have us believe. This novel seems to boil down to: "Man, can you believe there are people out there selling their own life insurance policies?!" I would like to conclude by suggesting that the editors of this novel don't deserve the author's thanks. QB
Rating:
Summary: Midwest Book Review - noir voice, tidy suspense tale
Review: In Bet Your Life, Richard Dooling spins a tidy mystery suspense tale with twists and turns aplenty. Think Raymond Chandler complete with hi-tech savvy and a contemporary edge. Press releases dub this book "classic noir", and it certainly is that, combined with well-defined characters and an unusual plot
Carver Hartnett is a straight arrow insurance fraud investigator who tells the story in first person. Miranda Pryor is the chaste but seductive object of Carver's desire. And Lenny Stillmach is the friend who manages to be a high tech genius despite manic-depression and chronic drug and alcohol abuse. These three friends comprise the team of fraud investigators who are very good at what they do. Each brings different but effective skills to the team.
Lenny's unexpected death under strange circumstances casts suspicion on his friends. These suspicions are compounded by the discovery that he has purchased multiple six figure life insurance policies naming Carver and Miranda, as well as others, as beneficiaries. Seems that Lenny's boss, the local police, and FBI think he has been running a lucrative scam by buying and selling high dollar policies for fun and profit. Carver can't trust anyone, including Mrianda, and he finds himself up to his eyebrows in a local and federal investigation. His life is in danger and it's up to him to find out why as he tries to separate the good guys from the evil doers.
Richard Dooling is an award nominated author because his wordsmithery is unique. His style is modern with the noir voice of past masters of the genre. Bet Your Life is not a simplistic tale. Intelligent fans of the genre will enjoy the experience.
Rating:
Summary: Midwest Book Review - noir voice, tidy suspense tale
Review: In Bet Your Life, Richard Dooling spins a tidy mystery suspense tale with twists and turns aplenty. Think Raymond Chandler complete with hi-tech savvy and a contemporary edge. Press releases dub this book "classic noir", and it certainly is that, combined with well-defined characters and an unusual plot
Carver Hartnett is a straight arrow insurance fraud investigator who tells the story in first person. Miranda Pryor is the chaste but seductive object of Carver's desire. And Lenny Stillmach is the friend who manages to be a high tech genius despite manic-depression and chronic drug and alcohol abuse. These three friends comprise the team of fraud investigators who are very good at what they do. Each brings different but effective skills to the team.
Lenny's unexpected death under strange circumstances casts suspicion on his friends. These suspicions are compounded by the discovery that he has purchased multiple six figure life insurance policies naming Carver and Miranda, as well as others, as beneficiaries. Seems that Lenny's boss, the local police, and FBI think he has been running a lucrative scam by buying and selling high dollar policies for fun and profit. Carver can't trust anyone, including Mrianda, and he finds himself up to his eyebrows in a local and federal investigation. His life is in danger and it's up to him to find out why as he tries to separate the good guys from the evil doers.
Richard Dooling is an award nominated author because his wordsmithery is unique. His style is modern with the noir voice of past masters of the genre. Bet Your Life is not a simplistic tale. Intelligent fans of the genre will enjoy the experience.
Rating:
Summary: perhaps the worst novel by one of today's best writers
Review: Many of the people purchasing this book at this stage in its cycle are fans of Dooling's previous novels, and like myself, would probably buy the book regardless of what reviews they might read. Until Bet Your Life, I couldn't imagine myself being disappointed by a Richard Dooling book. Dooling's carefully-calibrated nastiness is there (albeit all too infrequently), but the plot limps along, and the characters - with one notable exception that I pray points to a spin-off - tend to merge into one not particularly interesting entity. There just don't seem to be enough ideas to sustain the book as a novel of this length. For anyone not already acquainted with Dooling: "Critical Care" and "White Man's Grave" are two books that are difficult to top.
Rating:
Summary: Dull... Stephen King and NYT are wrong
Review: Stephen King loved this book. I didn't. While he tries to imbue the insurance and viatical industries with intrigue and give Omaha Nebraska a noir-ish danger, they just don't fit. Add to that flying sledgehammer tech talk and oenophilist rants. The result is a lot of good scenes in a book that doesn't really satisfy. There's too much pulp and not enough brain, too much expected or at least predictable plotting, and the industry and city that provide the background for the book just refuse to play ball.
Rating:
Summary: NY Times is Right !
Review: The NY Times was absolutely right to make "Bet Your Life" a notable for 2002 selection. Heads up to film noir and mystery lovers: This book is a MUST read.
| 
