Buzz Monkey

Enthralling, easy, sexy, smart: a perfect vehicle for Joe Montegna. More, please!

If you like to finish books you've started, read this one. But beware of starting it later at night, unless you have the discipline to lay down a real page-turner. In his first novel, Sam Hill has set a new spectrum of colorful characters spinning dervishly around Athens and Atlanta. And the action, suspense and pure entertainment led me merrily along their paths, trying to keep up. The best thing I can say about this book is that I was still thinking about its plot turns and survivors for days after coming to its conclusion. And I'm really looking forward to meeting up with several of them in forthcoming adventures.

This character-driven debut thriller runs on the buzz of adrenaline - Top Kiernan's drug of choice. Narrator Top heads an Athens, GA, research firm, Polymath, founded as a tax cover for his real job - operative for Shaw's Mercantile, "the world's leading booking agency for mercenaries, bodyguards, and probably worse." Top, wound tighter than the tops he collects, is itching for a challenge, but Shaw's cuts him loose instead. "My heart lurched against the inside of my rib cage as if I'd stood on the brakes in the fast lane....`What do you mean there's no assignment?' " His adrenaline jones has made him too reckless, a liability. His severance package consists of a valuable heads-up. Shaw's just turned down a recovery-and-termination contract from a drug dealer who thinks Top has the money that disappeared when a courier, Dee Lane, disappeared.Dee Lane is one of Top's boyhood friends. The other is Bob John, a cop. All of them enjoy the buzz of adrenaline, though none so much as Top. And now he has a job. Find Dee Lane, find the money, stay alive. The latter may be difficult as the drug dealer is not the only one who thinks Top has the money. Suddenly he's beset by DEA agents, redneck thugs, ambitious freelancers and worse - treacherous friends maybe.Top is a delightful protagonist; witty, action-oriented and impossible to stump on a quote. His trusted employees, the quiet, knife-wizard Benny, and the beautiful administrator Gellie are always trying. How can you not like a widely read man who still throws up every time he sees a dead body?The southern setting - from backwoods shoot-outs to decaying small-town insularity and hair-trigger racism - is well done. Bennie, deep and determined, and fast as lightning, is a valuable asset; complex, private and African American. The plot, though occasionally hard-to-follow or over-the-top, zips right along, but who cares about plot when the characters are so much fun and the writing sparkles with wit. Smart, funny and unapologetic, Top Kiernan is a winner. Let's hope we see more of him, and Benny, and the big, rambling old elementary school where they live and work.

Read this book, you won't put it down. Buzz Monkey captured all of the elements of great writing. It was fast-paced and thoughtful. The language was tight and sometimes edgy, sometimes just funny. Some of the lines I've been repeating to friends.. The characters were people I would want to meet (as long as Benny the Blade was already my friend). One of the things I liked most was the author's subtle discussion of race in the South, all-the-while treating me to a great ride. Okay, bring on the next Top Kiernan and Benny the Blade adventure.

I love mysteries that are challenging to solve and yet still fun to read. I also love mysteries that mix edge-of-your-seat action with just the right amount of humor. BUZZ MONKEY is one of those too-rare occasions where I found all those loves satisfied in the same book. The characters were described in such a way that they were immediately distinct from each other without relying on stereotypes, and the scenery and locales were so well-detailed that it almost seemed like I was looking at snapshots in a photo-album. I especially liked the interplay between the novel's hero Top Kiernan and one of his best friends, the decidedly lethal Benny the Blade. A great set of characters, an intriguing premise and a head-long rush to a high-caliber conclusion...what more could a fan of the genre hope for in a book(except maybe a bedroom situated on a basketball court, but then, that's here, too.)? I don't know if this is the first in a new series, but if it is, I'm ready for the next BUZZ.