UNBALANCED
(Jake Longly #7)
Book Review Crew
It never goes well whenever retired pro baseball pitcher turned restauranteur Jake Longly agrees to help his PI father, Ray Longly. He and girlfriend Nicole are just supposed to pick up papers in five minutes or less. But the papers are on the desk of a very dead guy with a bullet to the forehead kind of dead. Even working with the police, nothing is ever simple when they work for Ray. So many suspects for them and Pancake (Jake’s bff) to untangle and so much food, fun, and danger to unravel on the Gulf Coast of AL and FL while trying to stay out of the deadly complications and on the right side of both the police chief and their client. Will they all survive Pancake’s appetites in Ray’s latest case?
These characters are woven into the series but the adventures and dangers are definitely stand alones. Lyle is such a skilled writer, the reader alternately gasps and guffaws. I do cherish these characters, especially Pancake. You can begin with this volume but you’ll get so hooked, you might just decide to read the whole series immediately. I highly recommend this novel, author, and this series.
Kings River Life/Mysteryrat’s Maze
This is my first Jake Longly thriller, but I did not feel lost and was able to keep the players straight. An enjoyable mystery, it reminds me a bit of the Travis McGee books I read when I was younger. Different from those older novels are the multiple points of view which give more insight into what the characters are thinking. This might be book seven of the series, but it does a very good job as a stand-alone.
This story takes us to the Gulf Shores where former MLB pitcher Jake Longly, has parlayed his sizeable earnings into a seaside bar/restaurant called Captain Rocky’s where he holds court since he retired from the Texas Rangers. Jake, who knows nothing about running a restaurant, was smart enough to hire Carla, who has great restaurant skills, and followed up by making her a partner in the business. When Jake isn’t sunning on the beach or sampling the food and cocktails at Captain Rocky’s, he is spending time with screenwriter girlfriend Nicole. There isn’t much that he likes better than spending time with Nicole, unless it involves going with her to run errands for Ray, his P.I. dad, because those errands never work out so well. This time is no different when Ray asks Jake and Nicole to pick up papers from his client who they find dead. Normally Jake ends up getting pulled (kicking and screaming) into investigations. He is a rather reluctant sleuth, but this time he decides to be a team player.
Ray and his associate, Pancake, were originally hired by the victim, Carl Davis, to look into who is embezzling from Orange Coast Realty, his very lucrative and successful real estate company. They offer to stay on and work for Carl’s daughter Savannah to look into who killed her dad. Detective Brooke Peters isn’t 100% sold on the idea of collaboration, but Pancake seems to have a knack of wearing down those defenses as the sparks fly and the flirting increases.
The light-hearted banter is entertaining, and sass that seems to come from everyone except Ray (he served as a Marine and is all business) keeps you laughing. When you aren’t chuckling about how much food Pancake can consume, you are trying to figure out which suspect makes the most sense. Suspects include the business partner, Mitchell Littlefield, who may have embezzled a heck of a lot of money. There is a former employee who feels that he was railroaded because of his aggressive sales tactics and that everything is BS. Could Savannah, the seemingly broken-hearted daughter, be an award-winning actress? The plot builds until the big reveal and the thrilling conclusion.
At the end of the story, the only mystery I did not figure out was why Tommy Jeffers is nicknamed Pancake. I just might need to add the previous books to my TBR list to get to the bottom of that one. All in all, I would say that this thriller is light-hearted with plenty of tongue-and-cheek humor but nothing scandalous.—Tracy Condie
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