Review: Good but issues hurt the story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 7, 2014
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed Penny Found, the first Joe Denali novel. I couldn't wait to read the other two, I skipped Plugged Nickel and went straight to this one. By the time I finished the first chapter I realized that this was going to be a different read all together. The story is good but not anywhere near what the first book was. The story felt rushed and heavily fractured. The characters while well rounded, still seemed to be lacking. Even the characters that came from the prior books seemed to be missing something.  There was numerous errors through out the story that made reading difficult at times. Missing words in sentences caused sudden stops in reading while trying to figure out what the author meant to say. There were also a few instances where the character names completely changed and then a page later changed back. To me this felt like a new character was being introduced but that wasn't the case. The story was good but tied back into itself so much that it not only became predictable but it also felt like the author had lost her way and just tried to string things together to finish the story. The main crime in the story gets finished at the end, but feels more like it was placed as an after thought more than it was part of the story line. I applaud Barbara Leachman for her efforts to continue the series.  However this is not anywhere near her previous work and hurts the Denali franchise.