The Big Fix

Rating:
Summary: Boring Cliche
Review: I love detective thrillers, so I was delighted to get this book for my birthday. What a disappointment! The writing was awful, the dialog was trite, and the plot was dull, except when it made so little sense that I mistakenly thought it might be getting exciting. I understand that publishers might be willing to take a risk on a poorly written book when stylistically atrocious book like the "DaVinci Code" can achieve such popularity, but this was too much. If you really want a great detective novel, stick with Hammet and Chandler, who really know their craft.

Rating:
Summary: A bizarre cultural artifact
Review: I should start by saying that am a huge fan of Private Investigator fiction and that this was my first Moses Wine novel. Apparently, author Roger L. Simon was trying to update the classic Phillp Marlowe type P.I. story to the hip and strange place that Southern California (especially the criminal underworld) had become by the early 1970s. "The Big Fix" has a very strong sense of place and time, and today reads like a snapshot of that very confused era. However, as a mystery, the plot is fairly pedestrian. Set on the backdrop of a political campaign (though we never meet the candidate himself), one of Wine's ex-girlfriends is murdered shortly after bringing him a case. However, Wine doesn't seem particularly outraged and pursues the case with a curious detachment. Along the way he encounters a cornucopia of early 70s revolutionaries and hippies. Ultimately though, the climax is a disappointment not worthy of the story's buildup.

Simon has all the moves of a classic P.I. writer. Wine is appropriately cynical, hardedged and wise-cracking. What he needs is a truly Marlowe-esque plot to sink his teeth into.

Rating:
Summary: A bizarre cultural artifact
Review: I should start by saying that am a huge fan of Private Investigator fiction and that this was my first Moses Wine novel. Apparently, author Roger L. Simon was trying to update the classic Phillp Marlowe type P.I. story to the hip and strange place that Southern California (especially the criminal underworld) had become by the early 1970s. "The Big Fix" has a very strong sense of place and time, and today reads like a snapshot of that very confused era. However, as a mystery, the plot is fairly pedestrian. Set on the backdrop of a political campaign (though we never meet the candidate himself), one of Wine's ex-girlfriends is murdered shortly after bringing him a case. However, Wine doesn't seem particularly outraged and pursues the case with a curious detachment. Along the way he encounters a cornucopia of early 70s revolutionaries and hippies. Ultimately though, the climax is a disappointment not worthy of the story's buildup.

Simon has all the moves of a classic P.I. writer. Wine is appropriately cynical, hardedged and wise-cracking. What he needs is a truly Marlowe-esque plot to sink his teeth into.

Rating:
Summary: this is what the 70s were like
Review: superior private eye mystery with the full trappings of the era

Rating:
Summary: No, no, no
Review: The book iw written for the most part in the style of classic private detective stories in the first person and in short, terse sentences, but it just doesn't jell.
An ex girlfriend of PI Moses Wine brings him a case set in the middle of a political campaign. She is murdered soon after, so Wine becomes involved, meeting an assortment of ageing hippes who are still chasing the dreams of the sixties with hash and booze. I found it a complete dud !