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Rating: 
Summary: Great read!!
Review: I really enjoyed this insider's look at the motion picture industry. It has a tightly crafted plot and engaging characters. I hope that there's more to follow.
Rating:
Summary: Add this new author to your list
Review: Kinsey Millhone fans, are you wondering what to read between "O" and "P"? Meet Maggie McGrath, Los Angeles PI. In McCown's debut novel, McGrath, a former East Coast cop, is hired to investigate the harassment of Faye Symington, a costume designer just nominated for an Oscar. McGrath's friend Joyce, who runs a New Age shop, refers Symington's timid stepdaughter, Sara, to McGrath. Maggie begins investigating and discovers Symington didn't make friends easily, but she had a talent for making enemies. Shortly after Maggie is on the case, Faye is killed, and the stakes get higher as Maggie is threatened and harassed as well. The action escalates to a climax that has at least one twist (depending on the reader's detective ability) and an explosive ending. Maggie McGrath is a good character to build a series around - intelligent, independent, experienced, and occasionally a bit of a wiseass. She has a past only tantalizingly mentioned and an attitude that is distinctive but not overpowering. McCown gives her a few quirks, a potential future love interest, and a few acerbic lines that made me laugh out loud. All in all, Maggie is a solid, well-delineated character who is a real enough person that you might want to know her. McCown also gives her a couple of friends who will hold up well as continuing secondary characters with their own subplots (Joyce, the shop owner, and Chris, a caterer who lives next door to Maggie) and manages to make even the characters who pass briefly through the plot whole people with their own motivations, histories, and personalities. The action is reasonably paced, and McCown, a costume designer herself, throws in entertaining tidbits about Hollywood, celebrities and showbiz. The plot is good, neither simplistic nor overly convoluted, and the revelations don't seem formulaic or predictable. Reading the novel, I was pleasantly reminded of the early Sue Graftons, an impressive feat for a first book. That's not to say there is any copying going on, just that the main characters share some similarities, and I see potential for a solid series in this debut. So while you're waiting for your next big-name fave to publish, do yourself a favor and pick up this book - you'll add another author to your "must read" list.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!!
Review: Page one starts with a bang right in the first sentence, but it's all downhill from there. A looooong, slow, dull trip that makes you want to put this book down every two pages. (Which is what I did, hence the 5 days it took me to slog through the first 40 pages.) However, once there is a murder victim, (not until 1/3 of the way through this short trade paperback), things seem to pick up, but never to the level of heightened suspense and intrigue that is standard in today's mystery genre. The author does seem to have a feel for L.A. and definitely the film and design industries just as her bio declares on the cover. However, this gets in the way in terms of the mystery. There's too much-way too much-detail into the film industry relative to the amount, (or lack of), police procedure. And the detail into the entertainment world does nothing to promote the mystery of the story. These little, yet many, explanations of design and draping are more like asides, and they are never useful later on in regards to solving the crime. An example of this, occurs early on when Maggie, (our heroine), goes looking for her client in one of the soundstages, where she conveniently bumps into a really nice production carpenter who is willing to take the time out of his workday and explain to a complete stranger how one of the sets is being built. How sweet. And there are many of these little asides, which never take us anywhere. Our heroine private investigator-one time police detective-seems to know a lot about costume design and the architectural history of the Garbo Building, as is exhibited in her inner monologues (yet, for some reason doesn't know that the "gold, winged statue" sitting on the murder victim's bookshelf is in fact an Emmy!), but knows very little about how the police work. Which brings up another issue. How stupid can your main protagonist be? Not very, if you want to please your readers. She is never really shown as a strong, INTELLIGENT, sort of hero. The whole story is based on the other characters reacting off of her and not the other way around. The reader never gets to know who this woman is. And I don't mean character history, I mean, what kind of personality she has, how she reacts to people-I mean REALLY react-not just sitting there and saying something mundane and trivial in response to the other character's biting comment, or passionate plea. It does seem that Ms. McKown has writing talent, but perhaps not in mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: Book should've started on page 50 and ended on 51.
Review: Page one starts with a bang right in the first sentence, but it's all downhill from there. A looooong, slow, dull trip that makes you want to put this book down every two pages. (Which is what I did, hence the 5 days it took me to slog through the first 40 pages.) However, once there is a murder victim, (not until 1/3 of the way through this short trade paperback), things seem to pick up, but never to the level of heightened suspense and intrigue that is standard in today's mystery genre. The author does seem to have a feel for L.A. and definitely the film and design industries just as her bio declares on the cover. However, this gets in the way in terms of the mystery. There's too much-way too much-detail into the film industry relative to the amount, (or lack of), police procedure. And the detail into the entertainment world does nothing to promote the mystery of the story. These little, yet many, explanations of design and draping are more like asides, and they are never useful later on in regards to solving the crime. An example of this, occurs early on when Maggie, (our heroine), goes looking for her client in one of the soundstages, where she conveniently bumps into a really nice production carpenter who is willing to take the time out of his workday and explain to a complete stranger how one of the sets is being built. How sweet. And there are many of these little asides, which never take us anywhere. Our heroine private investigator-one time police detective-seems to know a lot about costume design and the architectural history of the Garbo Building, as is exhibited in her inner monologues (yet, for some reason doesn't know that the "gold, winged statue" sitting on the murder victim's bookshelf is in fact an Emmy!), but knows very little about how the police work. Which brings up another issue. How stupid can your main protagonist be? Not very, if you want to please your readers. She is never really shown as a strong, INTELLIGENT, sort of hero. The whole story is based on the other characters reacting off of her and not the other way around. The reader never gets to know who this woman is. And I don't mean character history, I mean, what kind of personality she has, how she reacts to people-I mean REALLY react-not just sitting there and saying something mundane and trivial in response to the other character's biting comment, or passionate plea. It does seem that Ms. McKown has writing talent, but perhaps not in mysteries.
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