Review: An error-ridden rough draft that rivals Twilight for how not to write
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 02 21, 2012
~~From Red Adept Reviews~~I purchased Lip Glock (The Cozy Cash Mysteries), by D.D. Scott, from Amazon.com.Overall: 1 1/4 StarsPlot/Storyline: 1 StarThis isn't the sort of book that relies on plot to carry it. What plot there is took several chapters to emerge, and when it did, it was gossamer-thin and hard to follow, often obscured by heavy description and aw-shucks first-person exclamations.The blurb makes mention of Zoey being on her way to establish a Milan office, but that never comes up in the novel. She arrives in Milan, but not for that reason. The first couple of chapters were confusing because so much of the text was Zoey's exclamatory thought processes rather than actual events. I never did nail down why the monarchy was in trouble, nor how Zoey's participation was going to save it.Characters waltzed trippingly from one exotic location to another like they were on the Travel Channel, which kept the pace fast, but once they arrived at most locations, food and physical appearances and snarky, amusing comments filled the pages rather than details that furthered the plot. A notable exception was the sweatshop in Secondigliano, in Naples, where I was sobered by a few paragraphs that dealt with the plight of the poor pressed into service by the Mob. Other serious plot-related moments were too few and far between for me to retain much information.The worst plot hole I found involved an overly-complicated fake-out and a cryptic clue that needn't've been given at all. One critical plot point assumed the bad guys just threw their old laptops in their home trash.Lip Glock is book 2 in the Cozy Cash Mysteries series. I haven't read book one, but this book makes several references to its plot and escapades (though in a stilted, repetitive manner), so I didn't feel I was missing much. The end was the best part; I felt it set up the next book brilliantly.Character Development: 2 StarsZoey's fashion background added a firm sense of knowledge to her info base (except regarding Botox--she made a whole set of jokes and nicknames based on Botox for Granny V.'s plumped lips, but Botox is not a filler). But her problem-solving skills were mediocre, she couldn't shoot a gun well, and her idea of what made a convincing escape costume was nave, so her P.I. skill set felt lacking. Her emotional range was minimal, making her seem wooden or sociopathic during dramatic moments.Roman (yes, a Roman named Roman) plays the role of bipolar eye candy. He gets to be condescending once.The other characters played relatively small roles and as such had little time to showcase themselves; they were consistent but tended toward flat. The Mom Squad was memorable despite their short visit. Every scene with Vinnie the pig was adorable. Veruschka, a.k.a. Granny V., was a hoot. The author left off the period after the V, so I kept reading her name as Granny the Fifth.Writing Style: 1 StarOMG! It's the romantic-caper-esque, Tuscan-sun-worthy, ain't-that-a-kick-in-the-head version of Twilight!(I had to. It's the only way to purge the book's hypno-hyphenation from my mind.)Description of Roman's physical features is regular and repetitive (that darker-than-dark curl of hair, those Tuscan sun-kissed hands), hence the Twilight reference above. See also: writing about a conversation instead of actiony things that are happening at the same time, like a dramatic rescue from a fiery death.Zoey's first-person voice is entertaining, with her splashy descriptions and numerous snarky asides, but with her strong personality in every sentence, the story reads like a QVC hostess on too much caffeine.Sentence structure is often long and convoluted. Aggressive paragraphing is used to draw out the physical length of Zoey's thoughts on the page, as if a bigger % of the page = a more weighty thought. Dialogue is weak and unremarkable. Word usage is stilted and repetitive, like the author is angling for search engine optimization. She works the series title in several times, but it never really seems to blend. Other favorites are "gorgeous", "dark", "very", and "Tuscan sun"--though the characters never enter Tuscany--and such hyphenated segments as "-quaint", "-esque", "-worthy", and "ultra-". Words like "oh" and "way" are drawn out to half a dozen letters or more for cheap effect; the author uses both "waaay" and "wayyy".The author employs hundreds of hyphenated words and phrases as descriptive elements, often with two or more sets in a row. At first, it's splashy and amusing, lifting the mood to reflect gaily dashing about amidst devil-may-care hijinks, but it began to wear on me after a few chapters.Another element of style that the author overuses is the ellipsis. Ellipses were used with such gay abandon that they seemed to be a cover for the author not knowing what sort of punctuation she should actually be using.Chapter one alone contains misunderstandings regarding what an M.O. and the fetal position are. At one point, the author has a character info-dump directly from the SEC's website regarding the definition of insider trading (I checked), and has another admit the source. Maybe paraphrasing is too hard?I see what the author is aiming for, with the witty hyphenations and the OMG!s. I've read some truly awesome cozy caper novels with brazen heroines who keep me in stitches, but this is not one of them. What she has here is not a writing style. It's a complete misconception of the rules of the English language and what constitutes a well-written book.Editing: 1 StarTwo out of three hyphens in this book are misplaced, beginning with one in the very first sentence. Nearly every verb that's followed by a two-letter word is hyphenated. Worse, I found plenty of single words that should have been hyphenated together, and would have accentuated the showy writing style.Many of the commas in the book had apparently become dazed and frightened by the fireworks explosions of hyphens all around them and had herded together in sentences where they didn't belong.The author took pleasure in capitalizing numerous terms for people as if they were their titles (Stylishly Dressed Soldier Three). They were funny and added to the book's tone, but many of them were surrounded by grammar that prevented the term from deserving capitalization (a duke vs. the Duke of Savoy). A particular problem was capitalizing "The" and "My" at the beginning of titles in the middle of a sentence.The above issues are the most prevalent ones, but there were dozens of minor issues as well. Misused apostrophes (noggin', `ole), mistaking "ravished" for "famished", etc. (The line read, "I was thirsty and beyond ravished.") This book needs a competent editor immediately; it currently reads like a rough draft, and those aren't meant for the public eye.