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ncrabb's review
After 12 years on a hard drive, this needed to see the inside of my book player and get reviewed. Nothing like a little hard drive spring cleaning in the summer!
I love all of Kaminsky’s characters. He’s one of those authors with whom you could converse over a plate of food and come away better off for the conversation. His love of and knowledge of old movies would be enough to keep me enthralled in the discussion even though I couldn’t add much to the conversation.
Lew Fonesca’s wife died because of a hit-and-run in Chicago years before this book begins. She was the love of his whole eternity it seems, and her loss means he essentially drops out of life and becomes a deeply saddened reclusive process server in Sarasota. He basically wants to watch his old movies on his VCR and leave the world alone, hoping it extends him the same privilege.
In the first book in the series, he helps a teenage prostitute get off the street and into a decent home environment—not a great one, but a decent one.
In book two, he’s still serving papers on people and taking their abuse as a result. He’s also in therapy with an unconventional psychologist who seems to be helping him either despite or because of her unconventionality.
The former teenage prostitute, Adele, entered a writing contest and drew the attention of a reclusive writer whose few books in the ‘80s were reasonably successful. He hasn’t published in years. But he has shelves of manuscripts that he plans to leave to his grandkids. They may be worth millions if they publish once he’s dead. But he and Adele argue, and things get worse. Soon, she steels all his manuscripts and begins destroying them one book at a time until the writer meets her needs/demands. It’s up to Lew to figure out how to stop her. Before he succeeds, two people will die—Adele’s boyfriend’s father and grandfather.
There’s not a lot of whiz-bang action in these books, but you come to love the reflective, introspective, sad Fonesca. Kaminsky writes this so your heart hurts for his main character, and you want him to shed his chrysalis of darkness and live again.
I love all of Kaminsky’s characters. He’s one of those authors with whom you could converse over a plate of food and come away better off for the conversation. His love of and knowledge of old movies would be enough to keep me enthralled in the discussion even though I couldn’t add much to the conversation.
Lew Fonesca’s wife died because of a hit-and-run in Chicago years before this book begins. She was the love of his whole eternity it seems, and her loss means he essentially drops out of life and becomes a deeply saddened reclusive process server in Sarasota. He basically wants to watch his old movies on his VCR and leave the world alone, hoping it extends him the same privilege.
In the first book in the series, he helps a teenage prostitute get off the street and into a decent home environment—not a great one, but a decent one.
In book two, he’s still serving papers on people and taking their abuse as a result. He’s also in therapy with an unconventional psychologist who seems to be helping him either despite or because of her unconventionality.
The former teenage prostitute, Adele, entered a writing contest and drew the attention of a reclusive writer whose few books in the ‘80s were reasonably successful. He hasn’t published in years. But he has shelves of manuscripts that he plans to leave to his grandkids. They may be worth millions if they publish once he’s dead. But he and Adele argue, and things get worse. Soon, she steels all his manuscripts and begins destroying them one book at a time until the writer meets her needs/demands. It’s up to Lew to figure out how to stop her. Before he succeeds, two people will die—Adele’s boyfriend’s father and grandfather.
There’s not a lot of whiz-bang action in these books, but you come to love the reflective, introspective, sad Fonesca. Kaminsky writes this so your heart hurts for his main character, and you want him to shed his chrysalis of darkness and live again.
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