The Innocent Corpse (B.A. Cole Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced, very mysterious who-done-it!
Review: The author really does a terrific job of keeping the action flowing. It was very fast-paced and exciting. I was more than halfway done with the book before I even looked up. Mr. Winchester does a particularly good job of giving his characters depth and emotion; especially the lead character, Bonnie Cole. Bonnie really is an interesting character. Pretty, smart, and very naive, all roled into one. I felt it was an especially good depiction of a young attorney, just getting started in life, and being thrust into the world of big time criminal law. I read on the cover where this book is supposed to be the first of a series and I really look forward to his next book!

Rating:
Summary: The Case of the Innocent Corpse
Review: The Case of the Innocent Corpse, written by David F. Winchester, is a very realistic novel about a mysterious novel. The author uses good descriptions to help get inside the characters minds. By the end of the book you will be surprised as to the occurrences that happened throughout the story.

The plot is about a couple, Edward and Susan Pallmer, who are asked to throw a party, in their luxurious home previously owned by Susan's grand father, for a "friend". The Pallmers are a little skeptical about the party because of some guests, most of which they don't even know themselves. The party is going well until things start to get a little weird and the corpse of a really close friend, Henry Forest, is found murdered. The police seem to come up with the evidence revealing the Pallmers to be the killers. Soon the Pallmers find themselves struggling to keep prove themselves innocent and to keep the police and their friends on their sides. They turn to an ancient friend, also a young lawyer, Bonnie Cole to help them get their lives back on track. But the plot takes a turn and new evidence is revealed.

It took the author 37 years to write this novel because got the idea when he was younger and recently remembered it and decided to write a book. He graduated from Whitworth College in Washington State and now lives in Spokane. He looks forward to publishing book No. 2 of the B. A. Cole series "The Identical Corpse," which will be available soon.

In my opinion the book had a good plot but was dry in a few areas. It seemed like the plot carried on to long in some spots. I guess it's not like on the TV show CSI though where the crime is solved in an hour. Real life crimes most likely to take a long time to solve, but in a book it was too long. There where however a few spots that kept me guessing. Also I noticed that there were a few spelling errors in the book like "includ" and "Mke", which for a published book were surprising. Another thing that I did like was how the reader was really able to get inside Bonnie's, the main character, head. Although I did find it annoying when " ".....", bonnie thought", was repeated several times. The one thing that I really had a hard time understanding was all of the characters. There was at least 2-3 new characters introduced in almost every chapter which made it really hard for me to recall all of them when they came up later in the book. I don't know if I would read the second series of the novel, but I might. Overall I would rate it an O.K. book, but probably not one I would suggest to my peers.

This book had really good descriptions and didn't have too many errors. Everything in the book seemed realistic and easy to believe. Even though I found a few mistakes it is a fairly good book with a good plot. For being david F. Winchester's first book it was reasonable, but I am pretty sure with the experience of writing this book the next one in the series will be a lot better.