Dead Drop by Jesse Miles

269 Pages
Publisher: Jesse Miles Books, AuthorBuzz
Release Date: September 15, 2014

Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Private Investigations

Jack Salvo is a private investigator and professor of philosophy in California. He is contacted by Culver Aerospace to investigate a couple of embezzlement transactions. He is automatically attracted to Lilith Lin and brings her into the investigation. As the search begins, he realizes there is more to the case than money. He uncovers an older embezzlement case and the possibility of espionage.

The book has a building pace, the characters are developed, and it is written in the first-person point of view. If you like private detective stories like the Pete Bragg series by Jack Lynch, you will enjoy this book.

Jack is an awesome investigator and I enjoyed his dry wit. The mystery was very good and kept me guessing. I will now seek out more of the series.
Many thanks to Jesse Miles Books and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this modern day detective story set in Los Angeles, partly because the main character - Jack Salvo - is a wise-cracking Philip Marlowe, or perhaps Mike Hammer, very observant, street wise and funny. He's also a part-time lecturer in philosophy (I did laugh when one of the thugs corrected him on the title of a book about existentialism).

Jack is hired by an aerospace company to trace an embezzler, and they've already narrowed it down to one of four potential employees. Naturally, he identifies the crook very quickly but discovers more dodgy dealings in the process of the investigation, things that the company would rather not face. There is grand theft of national secrets, kidnap, murder and some blackmail going on. It's all fast-paced and the settings are so well described that the reader can almost smell the pine trees and see the bikini-clad ageing former actresses.

It's a fun read, a bit over-the-top in places, not much shooting, and you have to admire Jack's coolness and nerve in difficult situations. I'll happily read the others in this series.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. A PI who is also a philosophy professor made for a different sort of mystery story. He also doesn't take himself seriously which I enjoyed. A few far fetched scenes but all in all an enjoyable read.

Reasonably interesting, well written story about a private detective. There were a few times I thought things were a little unlikely, but it was a decent read, although it didn't have the wow factor for me.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review. Unfortunately I am unable to give you a proper review. I apologize for the inconvenience.