Monkeewrench

Good twist at the end. Enjoyable read.

Outstanding writer, I now have all their books! Very interesting and fun to read!!! Can't wait for the next book!

I picked up this book while visited my sister in Ireland, summer of 2004, and I was very glad I decided to. A group of computer game designers are severely disturbed when images from their online game are used in a series of murders and reluctantly team together with Minneapolis police to track this killer down. The characters in this book are widely varied, though perhaps a little one-dimensional sometimes. There is some great humor here, but also tragedy. The group of computer game designers have a past they're trying to hide, and protect, which pulls some empathy strings as well as making an interesting twist. As the first in a series, this is definitely a seller. Enrapturing plot, unpredictable ending, intriguing characters, definitely a wow book.

I finally got around to reading this book in my massive to-be-read pile (I'd already piled up the next two books by this mother-daughter writing team based on the great reviews). Wow! Hard to believe they are first-timers. First, the mystery aspect of the novel is intriguing. What do a dead elderly couple in Wisconsin, a series of serial killings in Minneapolis staged to look like those in a video game, and the mysterious pasts of a bunch of computer programmers have in common? The clues unravel efficiently and the twists and turns of the plot kept me turning the pages as fast as I could read them. The clever double twist of the plot really entertained me as I had the satisfaction of mostly figuring out one aspect of the mystery but still be surprised by the ending. But what really hooked me was the cast of intriguing characters. There are the Monkeewrench folks, especially the heroine Grace, who is so scarred by something in her past that she is always heavily armed, lives in a veritable fortress of a home, and will only wear long heavy riding boots for shoes. Surrounding her protectively are a bunch of other misfits with lots of personality quirks. And working to solve the mystery are two sets of likeable cops, the Minneapolis detective team of Maggozzi and Rolseth, and the Wisconsin sheriff and his department. They all interact delightfully and several potential relationships begin in this book. It's the likeable characters that hooked me on the series, and made me immediately dive into the next two books to spend more time with them and see how they develop. I highly recommend this novel, and highly recommend that you read P.J. Tracy's books in order to avoid spoilers!

Start up with two dead Roman Catholic bodies in a RC pew in rural Northern Wisconsin. The deceased couple were worth over $7 million, but left it all to THE LUTHERANS! Flash over to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where people are dying, well, like, victims in a video game.What do these dastardly deeds have in common? You will want to read this fast-paced debut mystery/thriller by the mother/daughter team of P.J. and Tracy Lambert (pseudonym P.J. Tracy - get it?) to find out. It's a taut, well-characterized, rapid ride that makes my SLEEP? Who needs SLEEP? Page turners- all night long List. It is also often humorous and astute: Gino stared at the group with the dull disbelief of a World War II Vet suddenly transported to Woodstock. Reviewed by TundraVision, Azon Reviewer

When a debut mystery gets as much press and hooplah as Monkeewrench has received, I've just got to read it, but I read with some healthy skepticism. This book, however, deserves all the praise. A writing team of mother/daughter wrote it (how do they DO that??), basing the dense and riviting plot on a computer game that suddenly seems to be imitated in real life as people, based on characters in the game, keep turning up dead. The plot thickens (dum-de-dum-dum...) when we learn that one of the protagonists lives as a near recluse, surrounded by protective devices, due to having been threatened with murder years earlier - and the perp was never nabbed. And when it's discovered that the employees of the software company (the game's inventors) all have been given new IDs by the tight-lipped FBI, well, things get dicey. With 3-4 sub-plots unwinding, the book is a testament to the skill of the authors' ability to keep everything moving along with the skill and precision of a teenager with a joystick.