Hook, Line, and Homicide

This is an entertaining read. It was a little dull in the middle with too much rambling conversations for me; I tended to lose track of who was who and what they were saying. However, there is enough intrigue to keep you turning the pages, enough humor to give the story occasional light-hearted reprieves and plenty of action to maintain the suspense. Mr. Zubro has a large cast of characters in this book and I feel he did a fairly good job at keeping them distinctive from one another. I also enjoyed the different setting for the story which nicely showed that the gorgeous North Woods of Canada aren't always bucolic and restful.

I often glance at these reviews before ordering a book, but even more often I return to them after reading the book to compare my own response to those of other readers. I've never written a review myself, but I'm going to take a stab at how significant I think this novel is here. If you haven't read Hook, Line and & Homicide, and don't want to know "who done it," skip to the two other reviews posted before this date, for there will be spoilers here. Come back later and tell me what you think. I've given the work five stars, although I have a "style" complaint. It's a matter of my own taste, others may not agree, and the author may may be deliberately trying for an effect. Zubro gets repetitive with overwhelming use of the word "said" in writing conversations -- the "saids" line up like soldiers at the start of short sentences on some pages, especially when he's questioning a witness or a suspect. It's a risk in writing scenes of interigotation in a mystery, of course, but it gives the story a wooden style, a literary equivalent to the dialogue of Jack Webb in TV's Dragnet. There are descriptive alternatives that will tell the reader who is speaking. My rewrite of an exchange between Paul Turner and his sons on page 3 cuts four and leaves in just the first "said" : Jeff said, "He's gonna look weird if he doesn't have any fishing stuff." Brian made a crosseyed face. "He enjoys being wierd" Jeff gave him a smirk. "And he won't drive with us. He's flying in." Paul continued to sort lures in his tackle box. "Teenagers and kids make him nervous." Brian stopped laughing. "Don't most people make him nervous?" -- This sort of approach helps us see what the characters are doing, as well as keep track of who's speaking. Zubro is wonderful at descriptions of exciting, even violent action (the several dangerous scenes involving boats on the Lake of the Woods are examples) but conversations are mostly said, said, said. But, I firmly believe that an author has the right to shape and define the world of his novel as he chooses and the reader is a visitor to that world. If the "saids" are a conscious stylistic choice of Zubro's to enhance the "investigatory" nature of mystery writing, I'll put up with them, for I thoroughly enjoy my visits to the world of both the Paul Turner series and the neighboring Tom and Scott series. We're away from the usual setting of Chicago here. The other books in the two Chicago series have a resonance for me, having grown up at the end of the South Shore commuter rail line in the corner of Indiana that is part of "Chicagoland" and having graduated from Northwestern University a half century ago. (I am also a distant relative of the original owner of the Cubs.) Zubro places this story in foreign territory I know well, however, from frequently using International Falls as a crossing point into Canada as Paul's family does. "They drove west until they picked up Highway 71 going north." If they'd stopped at On

It's vacation time, and - as in past years - Chicago police detective Paul Turner is heading up to rural Canada to do some fishing, with his life partner, Ben, his two boys Brian and Jeff, along with his precinct partner Buck Fenwick, his wife and girls. Coming along this year are Ian, Turner's ex who is now a journalist, and Mrs. Talucci, an elderly but feisty neighbor whom the boys consider a surrogate grandmother. They barely get a chance to get settled in their houseboats, and they find a dead body washing up on shore, whom they recognize as the leader of a group of local punks who harrassed them on their day of arrival. When Ian finds out that this is the sixth young man to die in so many years, he starts nosing around town to see if there is a story to be written, which arouses the suspicion of the local egotistical police chief. Turner and Fenwick start to do some investigating on their own, and discover this seemingly quiet town has its own surprising secrets, including police corruption, prostitution, racism, homophobia, drugs, and even a small-time gay porn producer, as well as a mysterious benefactor on a distant island with whom Mrs. Talucci spends her time. As has been the case with his 19 previous mystery novels (11 in the "Tom & Scott" series, with this being the 9th of the "Paul Turner" series), Zubro spins a creative and realistic mystery yarn that immediately and skillfully engages the reader's interest and curiousity. His best quality is his knack for pacing, feeding the reader little tidbits at a time, and that is also evident here, although he occasionally gets a bit verbose in having Turner dwell on lectures about homophobia or racism. A minor fault, in my opinion, and I still give it five stars out of five.

Chicago police detective Paul Turner rents two houseboats on Lake of the Woods, Canada for his annual fishing trip. Accompanying Paul are his sons teen Brian and preadolescent Jeff, his significant other Ben, his CPD partner Buck Fenwick and his wife and their children. Paul breaks up a fight between the Krohn's gang and five First Nation Canadian Indian kids caused by the bullying tactics of the former. However when he reports that the Krohn crowd caused the incident as the Indians were minding their business to the police, they ignore him insisting that the First Nation people always cause trouble. Soon afterward the Krohn gang harasses the "fags" renting the houseboat. Not long after that someone murders Krohn. Police Chief Shreppel arrests a First Nation's teen without any evidence except prejudice and hatred. Putting aside their rods and reels, Paul and Buck investigate as they know the homophobic racist cops will not. HOOK, LINE & HOMICIDE is an interesting whodunit as the Chicago cops are outside their jurisdiction investigating a homicide that the local Canadian police prefer their solution. The assault on gay rights by government and so called family value gurus is given a personalized face especially when Jeff personalizes the venom as he cannot understand why his father is hated due to sexual preference. Although at times Paul can pontificate on racism, sexual preference harassment slowing the sleuthing story line down, fans of the series will appreciate the latest caper north of the border. Harriet Klausner