The Cleveland Local

I've had the misfortune of reading this series out of order. Being orginally from Cleveland myself (like everyone else in NC), I truely enjoyed the local color and detail that Mr. Roberts puts in his novels. When a character in a novel eats at a restaurant that you've been to, lives in a building you can identify by sight, it makes the fiction more believable. Les Robert's mysteries are good. They're believable and not over the top. Milan Jackovich is human, and someone you'd like to know. However, if you have the option, start from the beginning. Something very important to the series happens in this novel. It's sudden, and at the end, and having had forknowledge of it from reading later books in the series diminished the impact for me.

Les Robert's The Cleveland Local is a deftly written, cold-blooded murder mystery. This four cassette, six hour, audiobook features Milan Jacovich, a private investigator who gets caught up among feuding families and money politics when a big-name real estate attorney is killed while on Caribbean holiday. Narrated with dramatic flair by the author, The Cleveland Local is a hard-hitting, plot-twisting saga that keeps the listener keenly interested until the very end.

THE CLEVELAND LOCAL is perhaps the "darkest" of Les Roberts' novels about Cleveland private eye Milan Jacovich. It's about families - that of a young man shot down on a secluded Caribbean beach, of a Holocaust survivor who guards her daughter with Draconian intensity, of Jacovich's own family, the "family" of blue-collar union workers who band together in search of a better life, and the all-important extended family of friendships and loyalties.The city of Cleveland, with its working-class milieu and its stately mansions and sweeping lawns, comes so vibrantly alive that it's almost one of the characters.Much has been said of the shocking ending. It is unexpected, sad, and completely unforgettable. Only a writer with Les Roberts' craft, control and confidence could have carried it off. He's at the top of his form here.

This is the first Les Roberts mystery I've read, and I immediately ordered all the others available. Milan is a good hero--big, smart, and believable. Cleveland is a delightful backdrop--I guess I missed the city in toto during the four years I lived there. Now I want to go back for a visit! The novel is well researched, and provides significant insights into social behavior. The ending is disturbing, yes: but in Milan's world, nothing is easy and human life is unpredictable.

The Cleveland Local shows Les Roberts's writing getting better with each novel. I enjoy the vicarious visits to Cleveland, a city I've personally visited five times.The ending is a twist. It leaves me wondering what changed in Mr. Roberts's life while building the story. It also leaves me wanting to read the next book, A Shoot In Cleveland.