Jonathan K (Max Outlier)’s Reviews > The Dark Maestro > Status Update

This has improved greatly and evolved from a droll predictable story to an action packed thriller. Imagine a group of criminals offering immigrants big dollars for a kidney, giving them half in cash then flying them out of the country telling them they'll get the balance after the operation, only they don't. I wouldn't be surprised if this is based on facts either

Happy to see a change in the plot but if I'm correct about the outcome this will be my least favorite of three he's written

A comic hero that plays cello using the book title is a stretch but it makes sense given the bandit mask on the cover.

The death knell for mystery is predictability. And the use of it here is disappointing. Curtis gives his $75K cello to the US Marshall to sell and as soon the money hits his bank the music store owner is murdered. You can't get any worse than that. Sorry Brendan but this isn't as good as your others

We've seen the FBI puts a family in the witness protection program plot before and so far this is a carbon copy. And if act three is like the others the bad guys will be caught when they attempt to get rid of the snitch.. Hope the author comes up with a twist

The warm up was good, but now that Curtis is a famous cellist the mystery plot bears familiarity to the previous books. Hopefully the plot will shift to something new

Nice. Slocumb does a parallel character arc with both Curtis and his father, though given the fact Zippy works in the dark side of life, I'm guessing his happy ending may never surface is

Wonderful to see a father admit to his sins and do his best to instill trust with his son who was abandoned by his mother. I can understand the trepidation the boy has when his father takes a plea bargain to protect his connection. With his father in prison the child feels like he's alone even though the girlfriend watches over him

Hard to fathom a 20ish drug dealer taking his 7 year old cello prodigy to meet his connection no less show him how he weighs and bags drugs!

Nicely done.