This was J. A. Konrath’s debut novel, and it goes down as easy as a mint julep in the shade. The pacing never flags over 275 pages of murder mystery, as Konrath strikes just the right balance between character development and keeping the plot going. There are also (very needed) bits of humor along the way, which is nice. While the characters are stock in many ways, Konrath handles them well, giving each enough room for development that they don’t seem jarringly stereotypical. Since Whiskey Sour is the beginning of a series with returning characters, I’m sure that those areas where a lack of development may exist will be taken care of as the series goes on.
Konrath also has a real gift for creating suspense on the page. I can’t remember the last time I got wound up enough in a book to actually skip forward to see what happens, but that’s exactly what I did in one place because I just couldn’t stand it. If I’d been at a movie I’d've been crushing the ends of the armrests right about then.
There are some authors who seem to be able to dish out this sort of quick and suspensful fare on a regular basis (Robert Crais and John Sandford come to mind), and Konrath exhibits all the earmarks of becoming one of them. Whiskey Sour is a perfect beach or plane book, and I will definitely buy his next one.
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