A Dead Ringer

by Al Stevens

Somebody has taken a shot at Stanley Bentworth in a hit-and-run drive-by, and the soft-boiled detective doesn’t know who wants him dead or why. Then, when a stranger who resembles Stanley is gunned down in broad daylight, Stanley wonders which of them was the intended victim. The wise-cracking, hard-drinking former homicide detective finds himself drawn into the murder investigation when Georgia, his double’s widow, asks him to take the case. She believes that the killers will be gunning for her next in the most hostile of corporate takeovers. If Stanley takes the case, he puts himself back in the line of fire. But if he fails to crack it, Georgia could be next on the list. His investigation charts an unlikely journey into the worlds of online pornography, an infamous cat burglar from days past, and buried treasure. In the process he learns about a long-ago legacy that he never knew was meant for him.

174 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2013

About the author

Retired author of computer programming books and articles. Jazz musician. Now writing fiction.

Reviews

[Mary Stenvall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really enjoying this series - both the stories and the characters. Well written, humorous and easy to read, great weekend fare.

[Rob Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed the first novel in this series, On the Street Where You Die. It grabbed me the minute I began reading it. This novel however didn't strike the same tone. The opening chapter was just... well, weird, and the next chapter was just padding - brief descriptions of charecters already familiar to me from the previous outing. I didn't feel it really got going until Chapter 4.

From that point on the wry narrative and the so-real-it-sounds-alive dialogue took over and I was liking it just fine. The pace of the novel is breezy and, as with the previous novel, I felt that this eschewed complexity in favour of pace and just-so solutions. Everything fitted in so neatly and some stuff solved a little too easily.

But then complexity did start to creep in. Not with the main case of the book - where the suspects are identified very early on - but with one of the sub-plots. A kind of sidebar complexity.

The real strength of this (and the previous) novel is the characters however. They feel real, they're all different, and you get to know and care about them - which is quite an achievement in such a short novel. And the weirdness of the first chapter did feed into a laugh-out-loud moment that appeared later on.

The slow start did have me thinking it would be a three star novel, but as I read on I had no problem bringing out that extra star.

Stanley Bentworth also came out as not so soft-boiled after all. Recommended for an absorbing read.

***Caution, spoiler alert.*** If you haven't read this book yet, proceed no further until you have.

No really, stop reading now and come back later.

There's one thing I really must add, as it made a real impact on me when I was reading, and that was the death of one of the regular characters. It's a testament to Al Stevens's writing that I was choked up by this - the characters really do grow on you, and seeing one go down was a blow.

The problem here is that, as I mourned the death of someone I felt I knew, the jokey, breezy pace of the novel continued unabated. There was no change of pace, no real room to absorb the shock. It was quite schizophrenic reading the witty one-liners and the swift and tidy resolution while thinking 'But Bunny's dead...?'

The treatment seemed so light that it felt like one of those 'you think he's dead but it turns out he wasn't' kind of thing. And then the book ended.

I smoked a few cigarettes and thought deeply about the novel afterwards - which is a tribute of sorts I suppose. But I felt a little disturbed too. The impact of it left me confident that it deserved that extra star I dug out after the ambivalent start - but the treatment also made me wonder whether it should actually have lost a star instead. In the end I couldn't decide, and I still enjoyed the novel, so I left it at four.

But still...

[JoAnne McMaster (Any Good Book) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It had different tones: in the beginning, it was rather humorous and lighthearted, but as the book progressed it became more serious; until the final chapters when there was very little humor at all. It was as if I were watching a child progress into an adult - which isn't a bad thing - and it seemed correct for the book. The characters were written so that you felt engaged with them and cared about their lives, which is how a book should be. Kudos to Mr. Stevens and I look forward to reading more of his work.

[kathyenglish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book!

Not very many books are funny and interesting at the same time but these books are both. Very entertaining. Loved it