Rating: 
Summary: Geometry can be dangerous
Review: Pepper is intelligent and fully dimensional, a man still on the search for who he is. There are wonderful relationships between him and his family and friends, and well as some good humor. I even learned something about fractal geometry and philosophy along with way without it miring the plot. There's not a lot of suspense, but it's the characters that drive the story and the killer is a complete surprise. I also enjoyed the inclusion of small towns and cities settings; Nederland and Boulder, Colorado; Lincoln, Nebraska and Walla Walla, Washington. I really enjoyed this book and will be interested to see where the series goes from here.
Rating: 
Summary: Deserves to be a best-seller!
Review: Pepper Keane is a former federal prosecutor, now a private investigator living in a cabin near Boulder, Colorado. Jayne, an attractive math professor, hires Pepper to learn what links the deaths of three prominent specialists in the narrow field of fractal mathematics. Law enforcement authorities failed to find links among the three, but Pepper and his computer-wizard friend find clues and pursue the trail to a surprising end.Along the way, we learn a lot about fractals, existential philosophy, and the inner workings of a complicated PI. Keane takes medication for depression and has a mysterious arrest in his pre-detective past. Fractal Murders reminded me a little of mystery series about math and economics professors -- but Fractal Murders is better. As a former academic myself, I can say that he gets the academic setting 99% right. He does for Boulder what Susan Conant has done for Cambridge: lovingly accept and lightly tease a place that takes itself very, very seriously. Fractal Murders held my interest. As an avid mystery fan, I often stop reading after the first thirty pages and sneak a peak at the ending. Not here! I was genuinely interested in learning more about the characters and content to follow the author's energetic pace. Author Mark Cohen can write. He creates characters, evokes atmosphere and sustains suspense. Perhaps the biggest mystery is, why didn't he present this book to a major publisher for wider distribution? Or if he did, why didn't they take it? And when do we get the sequel? I want to spend more time with Pepper Keane.
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT STORY - Don't worry about the fractals
Review: Seldom do you feel like a book has been specifically written for you, especially when it is a first novel by an unheralded author published by Muddy Gap Press in Boulder, CO. However, in my quest for mysteries by new authors I was intrigued by the uniformly glowing reviews for THE FRACTAL MURDERS, and after the first two paragraphs I knew that I was hooked. This is hopefully the first in a series of Pepper Keane mysteries, a former prosecutor turned PI as he deals with his existential anxieties by reading Heidegger, listening to country music and Credence Clearwater, running and working out at his brother's gym, and hanging out with two great dogs in his mountain Colorado home, and hoping for enough interesting cases to support himself. And a mathematical and business angle to boot, two things with which I am familiar enough to increase my appreciation of the story but not essential to your enjoyment. ( The author's explanations are very clear and concise and a detailed understanding is not at all crucial to the story line.) Doctor Jane Smymers, a professor at the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado learns of the recent apparently unrelated deaths of three specialists in fractal mathematics, and her knowledge of statistics convinces her that the provbabilty of these being random events is extremely small. She involves the FBI but is dissatisfied with their decision to close the case, having found no relationship between the individuals, the modes of death being very dissimilar, and the geographic locations being widespread (East Coast, West Coast, and midwestern college campuses). Despite his reservations, Jane convinces Pepper to conduct a preliminary investigation of his own, and his interest is heightened by the fact that one of the FBI agents on the case is someone whose history is a source of great aggravation to Pepper. The author is a former JAG lawyer and now a municipal court judge in Boulder, so he knows the law, the FBI, and the area, and captures the essence of them all. He never writes down to the reader, and we get to feel that Pepper is someone who we would enjoy getting to know. (A western version of Robert Parker's Spenser with more existential angst.) And, as you may guess, Pepper becomes increasingly attracted to Jane and this plot line adds another dimension to the story. A few examples of some of the great lines, "A girlfriend once told me that I spent too much time thinking about things. I'd thought about that a lot over the years." "How was Wall Walla?" asked Scott. "It's the city so beautiful they named it twice." "This trip has been a real education," Scott said. "First I find out that there's a National Forest in Nebraska. Now I learn that there are black squirrels in Kansas." "I think that the politically correct term is 'squirrels of color'." And one last thing, you'll have to read the book to discover how to communicate in E-Prime. A true delight, a real education , and a good mystery all in the same book..It was so involving that I had to keep reading it to find out how it ended, but I was enjoying it so much I was disappointed when I was done that I would have to wait for the next volume. Definitely as highly recommended as anything that I have read in the last year, even if your interests are not as closely aligned with the subject matter as mine. If you like clever wordplay, fun characters, and mystery, you'll like this book.
Rating:
Summary: Murder, Math, Humor, Philosophy -- This Book has it All!
Review: The Fractal Murders follows lawyer turned private-eye Pepper Keane as he seeks to learn what connects the seemingly unrelated deaths of three math professors -- all specialists in fractal geometry. Keane is an exciting character, a bit of a contradiction. He is a former Marine JAG that flirts with vegetarianism, drinks Diet Coke by the gallon, and knows more rock 'n roll trivia than most any man should. When an attractive math professor, Jayne Smyers, discovers that three specialists in fractal geometry are dead, she alerts the FBI. When they tell her it was just a coincidence, she hires Pepper Keane. With his sidekick, unemployed astrophysicist Scott McCutcheon, Pepper leaves no stone un-turned, and comes up with more suspects than he bargained for. I could not put this book down. It was that good. The humor was great, and Pepper Keane's wisecracks reminded me a lot of Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels.
Rating:
Summary: A Thinking Person's P.I. Procedural
Review: The Fractal Murders is a fine first novel that promises good things to come from Mr. Mark Cohen. The mystery is intriguing and hard to track down. The characters are interesting and are unveiled slowly to make them more realistic. The context is full of Baby Boomer trivia, intellectual references and cultural memorabilia. The writing is well done, taking complex subjects like fractals and turning them into something almost anyone can understand. For those who love math, this book will have special appeal. I was drawn to the book by its title. A book called "The Fractal Murders" had to offer something new. I was pleased to find that it did. Pepper Keane is a man seeking himself . . . in a single existence filled mostly with the companion of men and his energetic dogs, Buck and Wheat. He's done with pretension, making impressions and seeking the big bucks. But a man does have to stay occupied and he does occasional P.I. jobs while still moonlighting as a brief writer (he's a lawyer by original profession). Keane hasn't had a job in quite some time when math professor Jayne Smyers hires him to find out if something connects the deaths of three top math experts on fractals. Knowing her statistics, she's sure that this can be no coincidence, and found the investigation by the FBI to be less than satisfying. Taking her retainer, Keane promises to find out what he can . . . but offers no guarantees. Soon, his fine intellect is taking him deep into papers on mathematics and he begins to discern a pattern. Then, using traditional investigative techniques, he begins to sketch in the details. From there, help from not-so-legal friends adds more context. The case builds slowly and unpredictably from these foundations in an extremely pleasing way. Stick around to the end, it's worth your effort. This is one of the best-developed plots I have ever seen in a first novel. If I liked the book so much, why did I grant four stars instead of five? Well, Mr. Cohen needed a little stronger editing. He puts his descriptions in many places many pages after where they belong and unnecessarily delays revealing other relevant facts. As a result, I found myself rereading pages to figure out what I had missed . . . only to find the material I was looking for 40 pages further on. It was annoying. But I'm sure experience will iron out this problem.
Rating:
Summary: A Thinking Person's P.I. Procedural
Review: The Fractal Murders is a fine first novel that promises good things to come from Mr. Mark Cohen. The mystery is intriguing and hard to track down. The characters are interesting and are unveiled slowly to make them more realistic. The context is full of Baby Boomer trivia, intellectual references and cultural memorabilia. The writing is well done, taking complex subjects like fractals and turning them into something almost anyone can understand. For those who love math, this book will have special appeal. I was drawn to the book by its title. A book called "The Fractal Murders" had to offer something new. I was pleased to find that it did. Pepper Keane is a man seeking himself . . . in a single existence filled mostly with the companion of men and his energetic dogs, Buck and Wheat. He's done with pretension, making impressions and seeking the big bucks. But a man does have to stay occupied and he does occasional P.I. jobs while still moonlighting as a brief writer (he's a lawyer by original profession). Keane hasn't had a job in quite some time when math professor Jayne Smyers hires him to find out if something connects the deaths of three top math experts on fractals. Knowing her statistics, she's sure that this can be no coincidence, and found the investigation by the FBI to be less than satisfying. Taking her retainer, Keane promises to find out what he can . . . but offers no guarantees. Soon, his fine intellect is taking him deep into papers on mathematics and he begins to discern a pattern. Then, using traditional investigative techniques, he begins to sketch in the details. From there, help from not-so-legal friends adds more context. The case builds slowly and unpredictably from these foundations in an extremely pleasing way. Stick around to the end, it's worth your effort. This is one of the best-developed plots I have ever seen in a first novel. If I liked the book so much, why did I grant four stars instead of five? Well, Mr. Cohen needed a little stronger editing. He puts his descriptions in many places many pages after where they belong and unnecessarily delays revealing other relevant facts. As a result, I found myself rereading pages to figure out what I had missed . . . only to find the material I was looking for 40 pages further on. It was annoying. But I'm sure experience will iron out this problem.
Rating:
Summary: A real page turner!!
Review: This book was a rollicking ride from start to finish, with a real explosion at the end. Pepper Keane is an excellent character, full of philosophy, street smarts and idiosyncracies. The plot was well developed, and included concepts from philosophy and mathematics that were well thought out and fit together like a puzzle. Cohen has a knack for presenting complex concepts in an easy to understand manner. Well done, Mark!
Rating:
Summary: Fun, Original, Sexy, Smart, Great Read
Review: This is an absolutely wonderful mystery. Just when I thought there could be no such thing as an original plot, along come Mark Cohen and private eye Pepper Keane. To all outward appearances Keane is a wise cracking ex JAG, but he has another side -- a side that longs for his lost love and compels him to read existential philosophy. Math professor Jayne Smyers thinks the deaths of three other mathematicians -- all experts in fractal geometry -- must be related, but the feds tell her it is a coincidence, so she hires Keane. Keane and his sidekick, an unemployed astrophysicist, tour the country at breakneck speed looking for clues. Along the way we learn that there is a National Forest in Nebraska and black squirrels in Kansas. Cohen has a gift for making complex concepts easy to understand through dialogue. He has a great sense of humor. If you like Robert B. Parker's SPENSER novels, you will love this. I hope Cohen writes more.
Rating:
Summary: entertaining analytical private investigative tale
Review: University of Colorado math professor Jayne Smyers sent her paper on fractal geometry to five of her peers. However, three are unable to respond because they died within a few months of one another. Jayne, used to finding patterns where none seemingly exist, believes the probability of this pattern in her relatively small populated field too astronomical to consider as random. She hires former US Marine's judge magistrate Pepper Keane to set aside his Gordon Lightfoot collection and investigate the three deaths. The link seems nebulous at best with the only commonality being math. However, Pepper becomes a bit suspicious of FBI Agent Mike Polk, who insists coincidence is the only connection since parallel lines never meet. Pepper realizes that his hatred for Post might be causing him to see a radically different pattern as he blames the Denver based agent for the death of his lover, but feels that contrary to Euclid these parallel cases connect at a vertex, which leads back to Post. Mark Cohen furbishes an entertaining private investigative tale that provides fascinating insight into fractal geometry. Snowflakes and shorelines aside, the mystery is fun to follow as Pepper looks for the pattern that ties the dead trio together while Jayne explains her expertise to him even as he hungers for a closer look at her shape. Don't let the geometry keep you from reading an enjoyable solid analytical mystery that plainly works on several hyperbolic levels with a final twist in which the sum of the angles of a triangle do not equal 180 degrees. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: entertaining analytical private investigative tale
Review: University of Colorado math professor Jayne Smyers sent her paper on fractal geometry to five of her peers. However, three are unable to respond because they died within a few months of one another. Jayne, used to finding patterns where none seemingly exist, believes the probability of this pattern in her relatively small populated field too astronomical to consider as random. She hires former US Marine's judge magistrate Pepper Keane to set aside his Gordon Lightfoot collection and investigate the three deaths. The link seems nebulous at best with the only commonality being math. However, Pepper becomes a bit suspicious of FBI Agent Mike Polk, who insists coincidence is the only connection since parallel lines never meet. Pepper realizes that his hatred for Post might be causing him to see a radically different pattern as he blames the Denver based agent for the death of his lover, but feels that contrary to Euclid these parallel cases connect at a vertex, which leads back to Post. Mark Cohen furbishes an entertaining private investigative tale that provides fascinating insight into fractal geometry. Snowflakes and shorelines aside, the mystery is fun to follow as Pepper looks for the pattern that ties the dead trio together while Jayne explains her expertise to him even as he hungers for a closer look at her shape. Don't let the geometry keep you from reading an enjoyable solid analytical mystery that plainly works on several hyperbolic levels with a final twist in which the sum of the angles of a triangle do not equal 180 degrees. Harriet Klausner
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