I was intrigued by this “locked room” mystery and couldn’t wait to dig in. I formed my own opinion early on, as would anyone reading the book. However, there was so much more to the story before I learned if I was correct or not.

This has a tremendous cast of characters and I have to admit, there were times when I felt bogged down by their introductions. For a while, it was one on top of the other and I couldn’t keep up and at times, didn’t want to keep up. Once I trudged through that issue, however, the story began to flow and I happily followed along.

This had some great moments of humor along with some of the characters that were fun. There were also times that there was a bit of drama due to a past relationship between two characters that are deeply involved in solving the mystery. While there wasn’t a lot of action, there were plenty of interactions. Overall, a nice read that I really enjoyed.

Seasoned detective Pryor 's suspension from the job is put on hold as he is called n to investigate the death of a grad student who was found in a locked room at the Gaia Institute. His partner is rookie Officer Cummings, the tech-savvy grandson of Pryor's former trainer. To complicate matters, Pryor's daughter was a friend of the murder victim and his ex-wife is married to the Professor who heads the lab. Throw in an ex-father-in-law with powerful connections, the police department and the FBI jockeying for position.
Intelligent and quirky characters had me turning the pages to find out who the responsible party is.
Thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

Nick Blake, a graduate student at the GAIA Institute is shot in the chest and murdered; however, according to the surveillance video ~ no one left the facility. SO the murder has to still be present ~ Right?
Story was more involved that I suspected ~ some techie language; not too complicated for Google though.

Want to thank NetGalley and Integration Press LLC for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for my honest professional opinion.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for May 26, 2022.

Easy flowing style of writing that captivates the readers attention. Unusual story of IT people and what is possible. The plot was mesmerizing.
Very interesting read!

Super enjoyable - kept me guessing - and I couldn’t put it down. Looking for more from this author. Description was exceptional

This was more like a glorified Young adult Story than a book for adults. It was not for me. The characters were a bit too over the top to be anything like realistic. The grammar, or lack,of final,proof reading was annoying.
The main character, a police officer, had recently thrown a local very important person through a plate glass window and was under suspension yet was pulled back into service and put in charge of a case involving the same person. Huh?
The teenagers/young adults were much smarter than the police and not above committing illegal acts. It was all too much and I did not finish.
Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion

A murder of a grad student at GAIA, starts this book off. Albert Pryor is a detective with 19 years experience, on suspension and may be about to lose his pension, when he is assigned this case. Pryor's partner is Cummings, a bright young tech. The GAIA institute was formed to predict earthquakes, but has something sinister taken control?

This book looks a lot at technology. In fact, when you get into the book, you realize how scary it can be. Just to think what could really happen. Think of Star Wars and R2D2 & C3PO. As the world becomes more technological advanced, I wonder if some of this could actually happen. I love a book that makes you think about things, or that includes things that could actually happen, and this does that.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pulp Press for the Kindle Version of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This best part about this book was the fun banter between the characters. The story was unbelievable and mostly predictable, but it was a quick, fun read and I enjoyed the characters a lot. Recommended

Basic old disgraced cop-young cop story with a cyber twist. Blandly entertaining but nothing that really held my attention.

Thanks to Integration Press for access to a digital ARC on Netgalley.com.

If your into "who- dunits, this is a most excellent book. When a murder is committed in an underground lab, there are all kinds of questions such as how the killer got in and out and what happened to the weapon. The detectives working the case, Pryor who is a veteran detective and Cummings who is a rookie, make for an interesting duo. A most enjoyable book..

Pryor & Cummings was a very engaging cop thriller. The characters were a little larger than life and quite satisfying. It’s always fun when a super smart nerdy woman plays a role in solving a crime and saving the earth. The pre-pub I read from Netgalley (thank you!) still needed a bit of proofreading but not enough that it detracted from my overall enjoyment of the story.

I enjoyed this mystery but at first was also a bit puzzled by it. I was expecting a hard-edged techno-thriller but instead it turned out to be almost, but not quite, a cozy mystery. While the book wasn’t gritty enough to be a thriller or police procedural, it did focus a good deal on the people involved in the various aspects of law enforcement charged with solving this locked-room murder. It also concentrated a lot on the personal lives of the two police officers tasked with working together. Turns out they had way more in common than they originally thought.

The murder was almost secondary to the characters in the book and their lives. I really was much more interested in them and how their relationships were going to work out. For me, this book was all about the people in it. The murder was just the way to keep things moving.

Although I liked the characters, there was really nothing special about them. They were all very stereotypical and stayed that way until the very end. The mystery was easy to solve and everything about the story was rather predictable.

My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

Pryor and Cummings is about a homicide detective, Pryor, and his initial introduction to the murder of an analyst in an extremely expensive and high-tech lab. Due to being very well-known, the murder quickly gains national media attention with the FBI trying to get involved and dooms-day fears growing.

Pretty quickly, the book starts with “thin blue line” rhetoric, tons of stereotypes about college kids and their weed habits/lazy personalities, making tons of jokes and disparaging remarks about preferred pronouns, and promoting police officers intentionally cutting corners and lying in order to get evidence.

Given the current state of affairs, this book is super tone deaf. All of the writing and dialogue aimed at making fun of preferred pronouns or current social Justice trends felt extremely tone deaf and unnecessary. I’m all for intelligent crime novels, but reading about a long-time investigator intentionally covering up unlawful seizure of property or threatening to arrest someone even though he knew it wouldn’t stick is disgusting. I did not want to finish the book given all of the tone deaf references but stuck with it.

With that said, the mystery itself was intelligent and really well done. I liked the specific outcome and how it was orchestrated: the commitment to not being “politically correct” was unnecessary though and it ruined the book for me. Even if you don’t agree with the current social justice trends taking place, staying neutral would have been a better book and outcome to alienating potential readers.

ARC was provided by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review of eBook

The murder of graduate student Nick Blake in the subterranean laboratory of the GAIA Institute leads to a puzzling discovery: according to the surveillance video, no one left the facility following the murder and there’s no sign of the murderer anywhere in the Institute. But Nick Blake, shot once in the chest, is most definitely dead.

Homicide detective Albert Pryor and his new partner, rookie police officer Kevin Cummings, find themselves embroiled in the mystery. Plato Vane, Ph.D., a renowned scientist whose claim to fame is the ability to predict earthquakes, established the GAIA Institute to further his research. Now the egotistical researcher, who is married to Pryor’s ex-wife, is about to open a larger laboratory facility in Hawaii.

He’s also the man Pryor once tossed through a plate glass window. Now, despite an ironclad alibi, Vane is also Pryor’s number one suspect in Nick Blake's murder.

When Detective Pryor’s daughter, Brooke, turns out to be a friend of the victim . . . and an acquaintance of Officer Cummings, might there be a bit of a conflict of interest? As they investigate, Pryor and Cummings find more questions than answers and, with pressure from both the department and the FBI agents assigned to the case, will they find the culprit?

=========

This locked-room mystery is both intriguing and delightfully witty. As Pryor imparts his years of on-the-job wisdom to rookie Cummings, he gets some technological enlightenment from the young officer. With the clever subtitle channeling the Greek mythological personification of the Earth and offering readers a hint, they may surmise something about the unfolding narrative. However, surprising revelations keep the reader guessing.

With well-developed characters, a compelling mystery, and a bit of sarcasm and witty banter, readers are in for quite a treat. The plot twists and turns, often in unexpected directions, keeping those pages turning. There’s a bit of character stereotyping, but each character [likable or not] is nuanced and believable.

This unputdownable murder mystery story includes some science fiction elements, explores some family dynamics, and includes a bit of politicking. Nevertheless, the denouement ties up the plot points quite nicely and is eminently satisfying.

The backstory for Detective Pryor is fascinating; the interplay between the characters is a highlight in the telling of the tale.

And then there is Blitz . . . .

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Integration Press LLC, ePubPress.com and NetGalley
#Pryor&Cummings #NetGalley

technothriller, not-TTS-enabled, thriller, law-enforcement, cozy-mystery, detective, murder-investigation, murder, retired-k-9, situational-humor, verbal-humor, cyber-geek*****

Interesting, fun characters who easily play off each other and give depth to the story. The story itself is a tangled mix of plot and subplots all adding up to a great read!
Part of the proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to Animal Adoption Center in Jackson, WY.
Kindle claims it is TTS enabled, but it is NOT.
I requested and received a free e-book copy from Integration Press LLC/ePubPress.com via NetGalley. Thank you!

Prior and Cummings is a quickish novel that is entertaining and includes a locked room mystery.
Prior is a detective in a bit of hot water with the department for throwing a rich man ( Vane) through a plate glass window.
Cummings is a very new detective, who just happened to date Mr. Priors daughter. They have to work together to solve the murder of Vane, who also happens to be married to the ex wife of detective Prior .and therefore also stepfather to Priors daughter.
And there is Blitz, charming…but I will let you meet him yourself.
It is a nice mystery, and neatly tied up.
I recommend
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC..

I received an advance review copy of Pryor & Cummings and greatly appreciate Netgalley, the publisher and Mr. Pennington for the chance to read it. Must admit that is the first novel of Mr. Pennington's that I read but won't be the last. Loved it. Very witty and gave me lots of belly laughs. Was sure I had it all figured out at first but surprise on me as I didn't. Also thank you so much to Mr. Pennington for going to donate some of the proceeds to an animal shelter.

"Pryor & Cummings: The GAIA Incident" by Rod Pennington
A Really Good Read ! !
A wild ride mystery with a trace of romance for the rest of us. This was a fun story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. I had to scrap my 1st title as it came a tad too close to being a bit of a spoiler. I never did figure out what GAIA stood for… well I did get two of the letters but not the whole acronym.. I guess I did not need to know or the author would have shared it. Have a fun time solving this mystery before the author fills you in. Happy Reading ! !
NOTE: I received an ARC of this story from the publisher via NetGalley.
This review expresses my honest opinion.

Entertaining fantasy thriller, almost sci-fi. While interesting and fun, highly unrealistic. AI becomes the villain that leads one to consider the risks of unregulated progress.

An Unsolvable Mystery?

Nick Blake is hunkered down over his computer, feverishly working to prove his theory about the professor’s uncanny predictive ability. A sudden noise startles him, until he recognizes the source and relaxes, just long enough to die. Detective Albert Pryor is summoned to the scene, restored to active duty, and put in charge of the case with no explanation. He has no idea why until he learns his daughter and ex-wife are both involved in having the case solved. Then he gets to meet his new partner, Kevin Cummings, the grandson of the man who trained Albert when he joined the force. There is a lot of interaction with these characters and Blitz, a retired K-9, and more throughout the book.

I liked everything about this book. The characters are well developed, some more likable than others. There is a lot of banter, witticisms, and emotion throughout, and the locked-door mystery kept me turning pages to find out what’s next. This is the second book I have read by Ron Pennington and they have both been excellent. I’m hoping this book is the start of series starring Pryor & Cummings.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for an advance copy of The GAIA Incident.