First Avenue

Rating:
Summary: A Police Story And A Good Read
Review: Author Lowen Clausen debuts in a police story reminicsent of Joseph Walbaugh's "The Blue Knight." Emphasis here is on character developement more than on the plot about catching the bad guys. Clausen makes you care about the people in the story and he is an new and original voice in the police-mystery-action genre. This is a good book that holds your attention but I couldn't help feeling that Clausen is going to get even better the next time out. I'm glad I read this book and you will be too.

Rating:
Summary: Quaint
Review: FIRST AVENUE is Lowen Clausen's debut novel. An ex-police office himself, Lowen writes in a style reminiscent of another cop-turned-scribbler, Joseph Wambaugh.

Officer Sam Wright is a uniformed patrol officer in 1980's Seattle. His morning beat is the north end of FIRST AVENUE - particularly, and for the purpose of the plot, around the Pike Place Market. In the book, the avenue is only just beginning to be rehabilitated into its present day tourist and shopping mecca. In Sam's world, it's still on the sleazy, pre-Starbucks edge. In this context, Officer Wright becomes involved with the probe into the death of a young infant, apparently left by its mother, Alberta, to die of dehydration in a squalid hotel room. Having had a previous fleeting contact with the mother and baby, and convinced that the abandonment was not intentional, Wright is convinced that Alberta is also the victim of foul play. Soon, his investigations focus on a crummy donut shop across from the Market's entrance run by a slimeball named Pierre. No Winchell's here.

This is one of those books about which I'm feeling guiltily ambivalent. In remaining true to my own feelings, I'm afraid of being unfair. On one hand, Clausen has skillfully drawn characters that are sympathetic to the reader. The storyline accurately emphasizes the low key, almost non-existent, drama of a big city police beat, and the relationships that a beat cop will establish with the everyday citizens, both good and bad, that inhabit his territory. In FIRST AVENUE, the crime under investigation is almost incidental. It's certainly quaint when compared to the sensational crimes that flood 21st century newspapers, and which serve as the fodder for so many other crime thrillers. Intellectually, I can say that the author did a first-rate job recreating the physical and human environment of that Seattle location at that point in time. On the other hand, my eyelids, which kept closing every ten pages or so as I was reading, tell me that perhaps the book is just too low key. Maybe it's just me, too jaded from previous potboilers with way-too-clever endings and an excess of unlikely action.

I suspect that Clausen intends FIRST AVENUE to be the first in a series featuring Wright and the three women in his life: fellow cop Katherine, married girlfriend and next door neighbor Georgia, and Alaskan expat Maria - especially Maria. If that's the case, I'll likely buy the next in the series, but do hope that Lowen picks up the pace a bit.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written characters, slooooow pace
Review: First time author Lowen Clausen has skillfully drawn characters that are sympathetic and quite real. First Avenue is Clausen's first book, and the former Seattle police officer places much of the story on First Avenue and around Pike's Market.

The storyline accurately emphasizes the low-key relationships that a beat cop will establish with the everyday citizens, both the good and the bad, who inhabit his territory.

Clausen is a good writer and the story has the rich detail that only a real cop could put into a crime story. On the other hand, the story is just too low key. For sure, most police yarns have action that is far over the top, but in First Avenue, Clausen has gone the other way. In the end, the book is a well-written, ultra slow paced yawner.

Rating:
Summary: I like this book.
Review: I am Lowen's Little Brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and I want to tell you what I like about this story. I like First Avenue because of the way Lowen Clausen made the characters seem to tell everything that went on in their lives. Sam, one of the important characters, seems to live a life that has no problems. He is also a man who wants to avoid looking at his past or future. But that all changes when he finds a dead baby in a hotel room. The image of the baby won't leave his mind, and the only way for the image to leave is if he finds out what happened.

This story is more than a shoot-em-up cop story. This story is sure to give you a taste of life in Seattle and what it is like to be a cop for a major city. Lowen wanted to write, and that's what he will be doing.

Rating:
Summary: A grand slam!
Review: I enjoyed this book a great deal. The character development, which i hope to see in another sequel to this book needs to be worked on. But the storyline, the writing was all superb. There were plenty of twists and turns, and it was fast paced. The action sequences were believable and tense. Everything held together well.

Rating:
Summary: A VERY GOOD POLICE PROCEDURAL!
Review: I have always wanted to read this book since the day I say it in the stores. The cover of "First Avenue" was very enticing with the police car on the cover. I was impressed because this was Lowen Clausen's first major novel. He proved to the reader that he knows a lot of background information about being an officer of the law. The storyline was very interesting and enojoyable to read about. The main character, police officer Sam Wright, has vowed to track down the killer who abandoned a small baby child in his house and killed it's mother. Sam seems to have a personal vendetta against this killer. Sam and his partner Kat go on to investigate where the mother worked in the donut shop and discover some disturbing information about the donut shop owner. Mr. Clausen takes readers into the streets of Seattle and sums the book up with an excellent confrontation on the Puget Sound. Great job Mr. Clausen!

Brad Stonecipher

Rating:
Summary: Lost and Found
Review: If you are looking for characterization, this is the book for you. There is a fine story but the characters are unforgettable. (The lost and found part is for you to discover.) You become part of their lives and you are very glad there are more in this series. Clausen has great insight to the human condition. He writes equally well of women and men and seems to know their innermost feelings and thoughts. Some passages are breathtaking, you will find yourself rereading them. He writes beautifully and you find yourself glad to have been given the gift of Lowen Clausen.

Rating:
Summary: First Avenue: A Review
Review: Lowen Clausen's "First Avenue" is finally finished. It has been a difficult book to put down, for I could have stayed up all weekend reading it.

It was a very enjoyable first novel.

Though I had lived in Seattle (Rainer Valley) for some years twenty years ago, I now live and work in Olympia. However, I occasionally drive to downtown Seattle, to visit SAM (Seattle Art Museum), or check out the many used book shops along First Avenue from Jackson to the Market, and recognize some of the semi-disguised businesses in the story; the characters are quite believable, and the "local color" agrees with my observations.

The shop locations, such as Silve's diner on the lower level of Pike Place Market, and the "Re(a)d and Green" leftist bookstore (across the cobbled street from the Market newsstand) feel familiar, as does "The Lusty Lady" peep show, with its naughty billboards (and ATM inside), across the street from SAM.

While I always thought the doughnut shop was on Second Avenue, I only knew about it from its unsavory reputation as a hangout for hookers of all ages and both genders.

The level of detail in your first novel reminds me of another author who has researched her specialty quite well: Laura Joh Rowland's "history mystery" series, set in 17th-century Japan, with its protagonist sosakan-sama Sano Ichiro, is an interesting look at the shogunate, and the seamier side of Japanese imperial court life, from a detective's point of view.

Your second novel (Second Watch) is recently published, and the protagonist is Katherine Murphy, not Sam. Interesting, and unexpected (a sexist expectation on my part?). I had looked forward to Henry, with Sam's tennis shoes as a redemptive gift, becoming his "sidekick."

I look forward to reading Second Watch.

Rating:
Summary: First Avenue: A Review
Review: Lowen Clausen's "First Avenue" is finally finished. It has been a difficult book to put down, for I could have stayed up all weekend reading it.

It was a very enjoyable first novel.

Though I had lived in Seattle (Rainer Valley) for some years twenty years ago, I now live and work in Olympia. However, I occasionally drive to downtown Seattle, to visit SAM (Seattle Art Museum), or check out the many used book shops along First Avenue from Jackson to the Market, and recognize some of the semi-disguised businesses in the story; the characters are quite believable, and the "local color" agrees with my observations.

The shop locations, such as Silve's diner on the lower level of Pike Place Market, and the "Re(a)d and Green" leftist bookstore (across the cobbled street from the Market newsstand) feel familiar, as does "The Lusty Lady" peep show, with its naughty billboards (and ATM inside), across the street from SAM.

While I always thought the doughnut shop was on Second Avenue, I only knew about it from its unsavory reputation as a hangout for hookers of all ages and both genders.

The level of detail in your first novel reminds me of another author who has researched her specialty quite well: Laura Joh Rowland's "history mystery" series, set in 17th-century Japan, with its protagonist sosakan-sama Sano Ichiro, is an interesting look at the shogunate, and the seamier side of Japanese imperial court life, from a detective's point of view.

Your second novel (Second Watch) is recently published, and the protagonist is Katherine Murphy, not Sam. Interesting, and unexpected (a sexist expectation on my part?). I had looked forward to Henry, with Sam's tennis shoes as a redemptive gift, becoming his "sidekick."

I look forward to reading Second Watch.

Rating:
Summary: Wanting more from Clausen
Review: No matter what kind of story I read, the most important thing for me is the personalities involved. If I don't like the characters enough to care what happens to them, I won't finish the book. This book left me hoping it might be the first in a series; I'd love to know more about Sam and Maria, and Henry and Silve. Or then again maybe it's good enough to stop where it is and let me imagine how these people are getting along without me. In any event, the next title that I see from this former cop will be going straight into my shopping basket.