Engineered for Murder: A Mystery (Tory Travers/David Alvarez Mysteries (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Engineer as sleuth
Review: A mystery that was written very well and a must for the technically-oriented reader. When Tory Travers is assigned to over see the building of a new football stadium for the local university, strange things begin to happen. The son-in-law of the pre-cast yard disappears along with all the records of the column pourer. After that a quality control technician is found dead. It just happens to be a budding investigative reporter who had just interviewed Tory. Detective David Alvarez comes into Tory's life to investigate what's happening. He quietly starts to look into Tory's background. He uncovers a mysterious past involving a state Senator, a police record and a love affair. Tory soon receives death-threats to stay away from her job. Suspense builds at the construction site where death awaits. Be prepared for a very surprising ending. I thought this book was a good read and would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable book. Looking forward to the sequel.
Review: Aileen Schumacher is a civil/environmental engineer, and her career and expertise, is reflected in ENGINEERED FOR MURDER (Write Way, Aurora, CO, 1996.) In this first mystery, protagonist Tory Travers shows intelligence, feistiness and a good heart. She runs a small engineering firm in New Mexico and in this story, her firm is responsible for testing the construction for a new sports stadium for a university. This wonderful set-up for intrigue involves questionable business practices, some old boys with attitudes about women in the trades, and a caring heroine who is not perfect, but who works hard, has a great relationship with her son, and respects her co-workers. The engineering in this book is not overwhelming; it is described clearly without making the reader feel ignorant. Building inspection may not strike you as an interesting issue, but as someone with a background in disability access, I found it fascinating. I remember those arguments with inspectors and contractors as everyone tried to lay blame on someone else. Safety, speed, public appearances and funding are just a few of the issues involved in building a facility that will bring in money to a school, and attract huge crowds (who weigh a lot). ENGINEERED FOR MURDER was reviewed favorably in publications ranging from "Deadly Pleasures" and "Small Press Magazine" to "Public Works" and "Civil Engineering News". The story moves quickly, involving Travers and a police detective named David Alvarez. The somewhat predictable romance does not develop between these two stubborn, rather intense characters, but you can tell they're not finished with each other. Aileen Schumacher's second book FRAMEWORK FOR DEATH is due out in August, 1998. Alvarez and Schumacher take on a most interesting case, involving the death of an intriguing, and not very pleasant woman, and dealing with a very volatile issue - that of the "underground railroad" of parents on the run with their children. In the interest of "full disclosure", you need to know that I am working with the author on her publicity. However, I am not a publisher1s representative, nor is this just a job. It1s more a labor of love - promoting writers who don1t get a lot of publicity (although I expect to work mostly for folks who come to tour in the Pacific NW, where I live). I could never, and would never, work for any author whose work I did not like. I truly liked EFM (I read it before Aileen and I ever agreed to work together). My background is that of a reader and mystery convention fan. One reason that Aileen and I are working together is that Write Way Publishing is not a major name in publishing, but is a small, independent house in Colorado. Their books should not be overlooked. ENGINEERED FOR MURDER is available in both hardcover and paperback; FRAMEWORK FOR DEATH will be out in hardcover this summer. Andi Shechter

Rating:
Summary: Interesting premise, but where was the editor???
Review: As a former engineering technician and avid mystery buff, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a book with an engineer sleuth, and a female one to boot!

I'm not entirely disappointed with the book. The mystery was interesting, although it was pretty easy to figure out early on, and Schumacher managed to weave detailed engineering information into the story in a way that wouldn't make the average person's eyes glaze over. Alvarez the detective was a wonderful character, smart, arrogant, but with a chip on his shoulder covering a wee bit of insecurity. If only the book had been about HIM!

On the minus side was the lead character, the engineer, Tory... The author's descriptions of her were trite and repeated over and over again: Incredible blue eyes and long legs and how tall Tory was and how she didn't have to work hard at maintaining her weight. Yeah, yeah, I got the idea the FIRST time any of it was mentioned. At least the author could say it in a different way the second or third (or heaven forbid) fourth round of the same description. As a person, Tory came off as too stiff and flat, even downright cold and drab--despite having a rather torrid past. Even her temper seems forced, somehow. Perhaps later in the series she improves.

The secondary characters are stereotypical, and some disturbingly sketchy. Tory's interaction with her son left me agog--it was virtually non-existent, even though we hear what a great mother she is. Oh really? She barely notices him or considers the effect her actions (or inactions) might have on him. Her refusal to take seriously a death threat would have been understandable coming from a childless heroine like Milhone or Warshawski, but for a mother not to even consider the effect such a threat could have on her son seemed awfully cold-blooded. The author also made a horrible mistake by not letting us "be there" when Tory received the death threat against her son. Rather, we first hear about it thirdhand through Alvarez's POV, when Tory's secretary tells him about it. Perhaps if Schumacher had shown us Tory's terror and concern for her child, I might have liked Tory better.

Another annoyance was the explanations of various Hispanic slang terms, like the author thought readers would be too stupid to know what most of them meant. It would have been different if the terms had been really unusual, or had a specific local usage, but most were standard fare. Explaining the pronunciation of the name Jesus was downright insulting. Nobody living in the Southwest would make that mistake, especially not anyone in a place as close to the Mexican border as Las Cruces or El Paso.

Finally, I don't think I've seen such lengthy chapters since Dickens. Breaking up the chapters into smaller parts would have heightened the tension.

In the author's defense, it was her first book, and a better editor would have corrected 90% of the faults listed above. Perhaps Schumacher gets a better one later in the series, or, considering the state of publishing these days, she gets a clue herself about what to keep and what to cut. Despite all the faults, Engineered for Murder piqued my interest enough to continue the series, but the priority isn't high. I'll get to the rest of the series...someday.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting premise, but where was the editor???
Review: As a former engineering technician and avid mystery buff, I couldn't wait to get my hands on a book with an engineer sleuth, and a female one to boot!

I'm not entirely disappointed with the book. The mystery was interesting, although it was pretty easy to figure out early on, and Schumacher managed to weave detailed engineering information into the story in a way that wouldn't make the average person's eyes glaze over. Alvarez the detective was a wonderful character, smart, arrogant, but with a chip on his shoulder covering a wee bit of insecurity. If only the book had been about HIM!

On the minus side was the lead character, the engineer, Tory... The author's descriptions of her were trite and repeated over and over again: Incredible blue eyes and long legs and how tall Tory was and how she didn't have to work hard at maintaining her weight. Yeah, yeah, I got the idea the FIRST time any of it was mentioned. At least the author could say it in a different way the second or third (or heaven forbid) fourth round of the same description. As a person, Tory came off as too stiff and flat, even downright cold and drab--despite having a rather torrid past. Even her temper seems forced, somehow. Perhaps later in the series she improves.

The secondary characters are stereotypical, and some disturbingly sketchy. Tory's interaction with her son left me agog--it was virtually non-existent, even though we hear what a great mother she is. Oh really? She barely notices him or considers the effect her actions (or inactions) might have on him. Her refusal to take seriously a death threat would have been understandable coming from a childless heroine like Milhone or Warshawski, but for a mother not to even consider the effect such a threat could have on her son seemed awfully cold-blooded. The author also made a horrible mistake by not letting us "be there" when Tory received the death threat against her son. Rather, we first hear about it thirdhand through Alvarez's POV, when Tory's secretary tells him about it. Perhaps if Schumacher had shown us Tory's terror and concern for her child, I might have liked Tory better.

Another annoyance was the explanations of various Hispanic slang terms, like the author thought readers would be too stupid to know what most of them meant. It would have been different if the terms had been really unusual, or had a specific local usage, but most were standard fare. Explaining the pronunciation of the name Jesus was downright insulting. Nobody living in the Southwest would make that mistake, especially not anyone in a place as close to the Mexican border as Las Cruces or El Paso.

Finally, I don't think I've seen such lengthy chapters since Dickens. Breaking up the chapters into smaller parts would have heightened the tension.

In the author's defense, it was her first book, and a better editor would have corrected 90% of the faults listed above. Perhaps Schumacher gets a better one later in the series, or, considering the state of publishing these days, she gets a clue herself about what to keep and what to cut. Despite all the faults, Engineered for Murder piqued my interest enough to continue the series, but the priority isn't high. I'll get to the rest of the series...someday.

Rating:
Summary: Female Engineer mixes with macho El Paso detective! KaBam!!
Review: Parker has Spenser and Susan, Burke has Robicheaux and Bootsie, Taylor has Ed and Eleanor, and Schumacher has Tory Travers and David Alvarez. And she also has a very good first mystery novel in "Engineered for Murder." There is a good plot, the story is fast paced, very interesting and believable. The locale is the Southwest. The characters are well developed and true to type. Engineer meets detective. And when the engineer is female and beautiful (and smart) and the detective is macho Senior Detective David Alvarez of the El Paso Police, the meeting is memorable. And it gets better as it goes along. So - you readers - you come along. There will be more books and more memories. This book is a great beginning!

Rating:
Summary: A Dazzling Debut Mystery
Review: Tory Travers is a no-nonsense head of a small New Mexico engineering firm, whose business and personal life are threatened by exposure when a quality control technician, freelancing as an investigative journalist informs her that he has uncovered a scandal in Tory's past. When the technician is murdered, Tory becomes the object of professional and personal interest of the equally no-nonsense Detective David Alvarez who finds himself puzzled, frequently irritated and ultimately captivated by the widowed Tory. The well-plotted tale has just enough technical information to give dimension to the story, yet not so much that we are overburdened with exposition. In fact, Schumacher handles this balance of exposition with sound plotting better than any of the recent writer-specialists. In Tory Travers, Schumacher has developed an intriguiging heroine whose often chaotic personal life is contrasted with an astute professional one. There is a problem-solving aspect to her profession that makes her an ideal amateur sleuth, and a curiosity that spills over into rashness that generates some interesting sparks in the relationship with Alvarez. The romantic antagonism between Travers and Alvarez sizzles in this highly entertaining, well-plotted, suspenseful first mystery. Very highly recommended.