Whiskey Sour [Kindle Edition]

First, I promise to do this review without any sly references to drinks or mixology. Whiskey Sour is about a 40-some average height, average weight woman who is in a decidedly unaverage profession - she's a lieutenant in homicide. Her mom was a cop, and she knows what she's in for - but it doesn't make it any easier. She has a divorce behind her and promptly has her current relationship ruined. In many ways her life sucks, but the sense that she's making a difference has her plugging onward.

This is good, because she and her hefty partner just landed a pretty nasty case - a serial murderer who is rather perverted. I love mysteries but I'm not really one for the graphic gore - there was one point in the story that I contemplated putting it down based on where the story was going. I did stick with it, though, and was rewarded by a toning down through the rest of the novel.

What made it worth going on was the writing style. There were many times I laughed out loud at the descriptions and sly comments. Yes, there are a lot of in-your-face ones like joking about having a "hunch" when they are discussing someone with a stooped back. There are a lot of other pokes, though, that are far more subtle and a few of these were gems.

I'm a female, and I found it refreshing to read about a mature, capable woman who was stuck in the ups and downs of love. Yes, they had the obligatory few comments about her wardrobe, but compared to most "female detective" stories I've read, this was *incredibly* tame by comparison. She does reasonably well in a bar fight against three opponents. She shoots well. Heck, I know some women who are excellent brawlers and who are incredibly good shots. It's not unknown - but it's amazing how people think it's "too bizarre" to put that kind of character into a book. I found it quite refreshing.

She gets scared, she has doubts. She knows she has failings. And yet she goes in to work, deals with her insomnia and hopes to find someone half worth dating. She's not a wonderwoman, but she does her job and in fact she does it well.

Now, about the flaws. This is a first novel about Jack Daniels, and I suppose it's inevitable that it is FULL of stereotypes. The pair of FBI guys annoyed me every time they showed up because they were just so obviously "target practice", there only to laugh at. There was no depth at all. They were in fact joked about as being cookie cutter people. Several of the other characters, who really could have done incredibly well with a bit more depth, came across as quite shallow. It was a real shame, because the writing style was so crisp and solid. The main character was well done, but the same care wasn't really given to the surrounding characters.

Still, the writing sang and the descriptions of the locations and people were quite vivid. The storyline, if a bit gory, made sense. I found the final summation a bit of a Poirot situation, sort of a "OK we tie up THIS end, then THIS end, then THIS end" almost as if they were running out of paper and had to get it all done quickly before there were no pages left.

I'll definitely read the subsequent books, and we'll see how the writing style evolves over time!

J.A.. Konrath's debut novel is one more entry in the burgeoning chick-thriller arena. And, it's a stunner. We have a fair share of tough female cops but few are on a par with Lt. Jacqueline Daniels - Jack, to her friends. Assigned to Violent Crimes, she's tougher than nails and gives no quarter.
There's currently room for improvement in Jack's life. Her first and only marriage ended in divorce when she put job above home and hearth. She's 46 and her "last sound sleep was sometime during the Reagan administration." Her auburn hair is streaked with too much gray, and the lines on her face are "about age rather than character."

Not a pretty picture, eh? Neither is the mutilated body of a young woman found in a dumpster behind a convenience store. There's a note stapled to her chest, reading, "You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man." Thus, the chase begins.

Jack's partner portly Detective First Class, Herb Benedict, has never seen a crumb of fast food he didn't like. Theirs is a good camaraderie born of experience and hours spent together. But, Herb has a wife, a family, another life. Jack does not. Since her recent live-in has dumped her for his personal trainer she goes home to an empty apartment and a whiskey sour or three.

It doesn't take a second girl's dismembered body to be discovered in another dumpster for the Chicago police to realize that there's a psychotic killer out there toying with and torturing his victims before they die. If you enjoyed "Silence of the Lambs," this book's for you. The Gingerbread Man kills not for revenge or in anger but for pure pleasure and gratification. He video tapes his grim doings so that he can enjoy rerunning the scenes over and over again.

Most puzzling to Jack is the fact that there seems to be no pattern - no thread linking the victims. Muddying the waters even further is the appearance of two FBI agent's who've been assigned to the case. In her mind they're fric and frac - automatons who are devoted to doing up profiles of known perpetrators and printouts of cases that might be related. She believes they were put on earth to bother her.

When the Gingerbread Man learns that the detective assigned to his case is a woman, Jack, she becomes his next intended victim. It's easy to find out where she lives, and that she lives alone. When hiring two thugs to break her legs only results in a bar brawl and Jack spending one night in the hospital. The Gingerbread Man takes over.

What follows is non-stop action and suspense until a final bloody confrontation in a rat infested sewer.

"Whiskey Sour" isn't for the weak of heart or weak of stomach. Several of the characters, such as Jack's mother and the police chief seem sketched rather than fully realized. It's not easy to craft a tough female protagonist about whom readers care. Some may not feel an affinity for Jack Daniels but many will look forward to meeting her again in the second of this planned series, "Bloody Mary," which is due next year.

- Gail Cooke

And Konrath has delivered. This deathless genre takes another twist into humor with this wonderful debut effort.

Kinsey Milhone has gotten us to a place of frustration with her Nancy Drew-ish plot devices and artificial descent into lawbreaking. "Ten Big Ones" did not sparkle like Janet E's other stuff, which might telegraph that she might be Plum out of new ideas.

So we need more female detectives. Konrath walks where angels fear to tread too: he's a male writer creating a hard-bioled female character. I think he did a fine job, creating a lively, amusing and smart woman who has problems just like everyone else. He does convey, though, the sheer delight in the chase and the capture which any good cop must have in abundance.

Looking forward to the next one...