Review: Keeps you guessing.  B+ effort, good start to a series
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 25, 2011
The book starts out slowly, and (sorry to say) a bit boring.  An elderly man, Henry Dane, living on his own in Colorado suffers from a heart attack and dies alone.  The problem is the intro is poorly written and hardly the best setup for a mystery. The author doesn't put enough ominous tone into it, save for a gimmicky last sentence or two about Henry not tying up all loose ends.  Instead, we're indirectly introduced to most of the main characters- Henry's son, Michael, a greedy real estate agent, Henry's doctor, Dr Hiram, and a neighbor/vet, AJ- via Henry's thoughts.  But mostly the prologue is about Henry feeding the horses, Henry loving his dead dog, Henry having his heart attack.Its really too bad, then, that the "mystery" takes almost 10 chapters to reveal itself.  Though I got all the connections at the end, I was mad that the prologue was written as blandly as it was.But this might be a beginner's mistake.  The author does pick up in pace when writing about Michael Dane.  Michael is the "anti-hero" with a criminal record; when we meet him, he's stealing cars and selling identities/stolen IDs. As you might expect, he messes with "people who deserve it" AKA the rich folks. And since this is the 21st century, Michael is a computer genius who can hack into any security system/password/etc.  Yeah, he's a bit of a cliché but he's pretty funny and likeable.  The author throws poor Michael into plenty of wacky situations, including an overlong chapter where he chases down a truck carrying his tainted urine sample while trying to fight off a sedative.Somewhere in the mix, Michael solves the mystery of his father's death. Or rather, Michael stumbles upon pretty much every clue by accident, or after one of his unknown enemies attacks him. He's so distanced from his father that he almost does not want to dig into the past. His disconnect is the main reason for the lack of emotion in the book. While I did understand how, as a child, Michael would rebel against having to interpret/speak for his deaf parents, there's no full explanation for his extreme and very apparent hatred of his father.  He also is quite emotionless towards the many deaf characters he encounters.  Since this series appears to rely heavily on deafness, I am hoping in future books Michael will start to show some more heart and interest.I'm rather overlong in my review so I will end by saying this is a good and I'm hoping a lot of the characters and plots get picked up in the series.  As a mystery, this did have plenty of plot twists and false leads.  Not quite an emotional book but still entertaining.Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.