Big Easy Backroad

Rating:
Summary: Straight from New Orleans!
Review: This first time novelist is a "MUST-READ"! Written with humor, excitement, and real characters, this intricate plot is kind of like Magnum PI hits the Deep South. Hopefully, Martin Hegwood's first mystery novel is only the beginning of a delightful series of well-written and thought-out bonuses for mystery lovers. This one's "movie material"!

Rating:
Summary: Not Much Life--He's Doing Burke "By The Numbers"
Review: This was kind of a dull first novel. Hegwood is, as others have noted, trodding ground made familiar by James Lee Burke. But this first Jack Delmas mystery has none of the magic of Burke. The book reads a lot like it was written by someone who was just trying to hit all the notes, but not really playing a tune. All the elements are there, but there isn't any magic, any fluency. I stuck with it once I hit the 50-page mark, but felt I had to finish it--I wasn't really compelled to by the writing. Unfortunately, I'd already purchased the second Delmas mystery, _Green-Eyed Hurricane_, before I started in on this one. Maybe that one will be better.

Rating:
Summary: Not Much Life--He's Doing Burke "By The Numbers"
Review: This was kind of a dull first novel. Hegwood is, as others have noted, trodding ground made familiar by James Lee Burke. But this first Jack Delmas mystery has none of the magic of Burke. The book reads a lot like it was written by someone who was just trying to hit all the notes, but not really playing a tune. All the elements are there, but there isn't any magic, any fluency. I stuck with it once I hit the 50-page mark, but felt I had to finish it--I wasn't really compelled to by the writing. Unfortunately, I'd already purchased the second Delmas mystery, _Green-Eyed Hurricane_, before I started in on this one. Maybe that one will be better.