Live Bait

Rating:
Summary: terrific crime thriller
Review: As improbable as it sounds, there have been no homicides in Minneapolis for months and the detectives that work on homicides are reduced to working on cold cases. The terrific dry spell breaks in a horrific way when eighty five year old Morey Gilbert, a victim of the concentration camp, is killed outside his home. Homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth (of MONKEEWRENCH fame) are assigned the case but they have little to go on because the victim's wife messed up the crime scene.

In the same neighborhood Mr. Fischer's living room is a sea of blood but there is no body. It is later discovered that the corpse is tied up at the railroad trucks but Fischer has a heart attack before the train could hit him. At first the two homicide detectives believe there is no link between the two killings but learns much later that there is. In the meantime, two more eighty-something victims, a man and a woman both living in Morey's neighborhood, are murdered and the only thing they have in common is that they are survivors of the camps.

P.J. Tracy is an expect at writings crime thrillers with so many unexpected twists and turns in the storyline that readers find themselves totally absorbed in the book and will want to read it one sitting. The works of this mother-daughter writing team will be enjoyed by readers who like Patricia Cornwell, Christine McGuire, and Nancy Taylor Rosenberg. The action scenes are very realistic as is the plot but the characters take LIVE BAIT out of the ordinary into the sublime.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: In the follow-up to the excellent debut novel, MONKEEWRENCH, homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth return to investigate a series of murders of Holocaust survivors. There is no seemingly plausible explanation why these salt-of-the-earth elderly people were being murdered. Clues lead to an international link that threatens to unravel a lifetime of secrets.

I highly anticipated another page-turning suspenseful thriller after MONKEEWRENCH, which was one of my favorite books last year. The setup of the story started off well enough because the characters were engaging and the premise seemed interesting, but once the plotline was revealed the story went into cliché-ridden, been there-done that territory. It was a real letdown. The ending to the mystery is a little too predictable. I figured out who the culprit was without even trying. The best part of the book was the interaction between Grace McBride from MONKEEWRENCH and Leo Mazozzi. I hope they are forefront in the next book and that the next book has a better storyline.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Monkeewrench
Review: Not as good as Monkeewrench, but still worth reading. I was disappointed to see that it was another revenge-from-the-camps type of book - it's not like that subject hasn't been covered. They did a good job with it, though, although it took the cops way too long to figure out the revenge angle. Maybe they don't read fiction?
I was mildly suprised to learn whodunit but by then I wasn't really that invested in having the mystery solved. In Monkeewrench the plot and the writing were equally great. In Live Bait I think the writing was too good for what the writer was working with.
Most of the writing was about Magozzi and crew solving the crime, but Grace and the Monkeewrench crew were there, preparing to take a crime-solving RV out on the road. I'm curious as to whether the next book will follow the Monkeewrench crew out on the road, or Magozzi and pals back at the station house. I'm rooting for any further books to follow the cops. I like the Monkeewrench crew, but would seriously miss Leo and Gino and Angela (who is never seen but whose presence is so strongly felt through Gino's lunches and phone calls).

Rating:
Summary: A Compelling and Lively Sequel to "Monkeewrench"
Review: P. J. Tracy (the pseudonym for a mother-daughter writing duo) gained a lot of fans with their first novel, MONKEEWRENCH, a word-of-mouth favorite. Now MONKEEWRENCH's unforgettable characters, lively pacing and eccentric humor return in the sequel, LIVE BAIT.

A year after the Monkeewrench killing spree paralyzed the city, Minneapolis's finest are still reeling. It's been a slow few months in the homicide department, but on a rainy April night, two murders are called in. At first, the two crimes seem unrelated --- the only connection is that both victims are senior citizens. As Detective Magozzi and his team investigate, though, it soon becomes clear that the two murders are connected, but not in a way that anyone would have imagined.

The surprising connection between two seemingly unrelated murders is just one of LIVE BAIT's plot twists that will keep readers hooked. In addition to the compelling mystery story, Tracy's clever, sharp-tongued prose and wry observations add depth to the novel. One detective, for instance, describes the muggy spring day by saying, "I feel like Frosty the Snowman when he got locked in the greenhouse with all the poinsettias." The weather is, in fact, a major force in the novel, as a tornado bears down on the city just as the Minneapolis police bear down on their suspect.

Most of the favorite characters from MONKEEWRENCH are back for this second installment. Many of them are still bruised from their earlier adventures, none more so than Marty Pullman, the cop whose wife was murdered by the Monkeewrench killer. Unable to work, haunted by memories of his wife and his own dark secrets, Marty is a tragic character, consumed by loss and alcoholism. Beautiful but fragile Grace MacBride is also back, trying hard to live a normal life now that she's no longer in mortal danger.

Grace's motley band of software developers --- the central characters of MONKEEWRENCH --- are here, too, but in LIVE BAIT, they serve primarily as comic relief rather than as fully developed characters. Their connection to the plot is tenuous at best, although the author does seem to be setting up a larger role for this quirky crew in the next installment of this winning mystery series. Stay tuned!

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl