Rigged by D. P. Lyle
Jake Longly, a retired baseball star, Nicole his ravishing and humorous girlfriend, Pancake his enormous best pal and Ray his condescending father are the main characters in this series. This time the private eye agency is drawn into a double and then quadruple murder just up the road in Alabama.
Lyle does a good job with Tammy, Jake’s demented ex-wife. Her character adds some light humor. Jake’s self-depicted inadequacies are a bit tiresome. You’d think that someone who pitched in the bigs would be more confident. He and Nicole’s relationship reminds me of Parker’s characters of Spencer and Hawk except the sex part.
The story was entertaining, light fare and good to get the mind off of the horrific aspects of the current year.
I enjoyed it and recommend the series.

3.5 stars

Looking for a book to give you some time away from the craziness of our world, then this book might just be for you. The characters I read in the book, Sunshine State, are back and what I loved about them all is still prevalent in this outing. Jake, the ex baseball player who is a PI, but not a PI working for his father's agency is once again pulled into a murder. He is joined by the ever lovely, smart Nicole, as well as Pancake, a lovable tough guy who seems to see and know all, and has a voracious appetite.

In this outing, Pancake is back to visit an old time lost love , Emily. When she doesn't show for their get together, Pancake becomes leery. Later, Pancake learns that she and her boyfriend have been shot in what seems like a mob, drug style killing.

The team from Longly Investigations is called in and goes to work trying to unmask the killer and as the suspects line up the reader wonders who could the murderer be? Could it be the husband who has an iron clad alibi? Could it be the other boyfriend of Emily's, or could it be that drugs have a hand in the murder of these two.

Fast paced with that wonderful repartee that happens between Nicole and Jake, this was a nice addition to the Jake Longly series.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this story.

Wow! This is such a great book! I had a great time delving into the mystery and trying to solve the case. Lyle is a fantastic writer. This is the only book I've read from this series, but I am so excited to go back and read the others. If you like mysteries, you'll definitely like this one!

It's an engrossing and entertaining story that kept me hooked.
I loved the well thought cast of characters, the setting, and the solid mystery that kept me guessing.
Even if it's part of a series I had no issues with the plot or the characters and want to read the other instalment.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This is a fun book, albeit with murders. The fourth book of a series, it makes me want to find the earlier books and read them, too. The main narrator, Jake Longly, is extremely amusing, and the other characters are so well described the reader can almost see them. The author of “Rigged,” D P Lyle, is a medical doctor who has written another series about a forensic scientist, other fiction books, and nonfiction.

Jake Longly is a former major league pitcher, now retired and living in Florida. His father runs a private detective agency for which his best friend and girlfriend work. Jake owns a bar and doesn’t work for his father, with whom he has some problems, but goes along for the ride. The descriptions of the relationships Jake has with others, especially his ex-wife, are funny and enjoyable if not side-splitting.

I don’t like spoilers, so I am not going to say much about the plot. You can read the blurb the publisher provided. The murders are a little gory, but not bad, so they should not upset anyone used to mysteries. You can safely let a teen read this book.

I really liked “Rigged.” I didn’t see the ending coming, and enjoyed the ride to get there. I am definitely going to find the first three books in the series. I am curious about Jake’s problems with his father, and I would like to know more about the other characters. Why not join me?

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions are my own.

This was my first read of a book by this author, and it follows several others in the series. I got into it pretty quickly and want to go back and read the others as I thoroughly enjoyed the lead characters. As so often is the case, investigating murders reveals so much more than just the killer, and this book tells a very good story.

4th entry in the Jake Longly series. Jake, a reluctant private investigator, and his crew look into the murder of a childhood friend. While the story is solid, it’s the relationships between the main characters and dialogue that make this series special. Mr Lyle has a knack for making the friends sound like a group of people with a long history and tons of shared experiences. His books are like a trip to the beach with your friends, filled with adventure, some booze and a lots of laughs.

Do your self a favor, slap on some sunscreen, grab a cool beverage and head out to the pool with Rigged. It’s a fun, summer escape to the beach.

Your first love… do you ever forget that? Those crazy rushes of hormone-enhanced feelings, hours spent daydreaming, and riding that constant high, while the first flush of infatuation (or “love”, as we all call it at the time) lasts?

No, those memories stay with you, most of us would agree, and it’s that notion which is at the heart, if you will, of author D.P. Lyle’s latest thriller, Rigged.

But let me start by getting the big problem I have with this out of the way. The “first love”, in Rigged, took place between a pair of 12-year-olds… and ended right after the 6th grade, when the girl’s parents moved. (Okay, you’re thinking, so it was puppy love. What’s the problem?)

I wouldn’t have a problem, if the author didn’t make such a monumentally-big deal of it, with one of his main characters—the humorously-nicknamed “Pancake”—going on (and on) about how “in love” they were, and how much he’s thought about her in the intervening twenty-plus years… despite never once bothering to pick up the phone and call, or making any effort to drive thirty miles (which is all the further her parents moved) to see her?!? (Maybe, if the character was extremely shy, and still lived in his mother’s basement, and… but no, Pancake is otherwise portrayed as well-adjusted and charming, so… it’s a problem.)

Aside from that nit-picky issue, though, what do we have here? A regular line-up, in an ongoing series (although this is a new author and series to me), comprised of studly ex-baseball-player-cum-bar/restaurant owner, Jake Longly; his girlfriend, the luscious Nicole, who works for a private investigator—Ray Longly, Jake’s dad; along with the aforementioned Pancake, an ex-footballer-cum-p.i. Oh, and the Gulf Coast—around the Alabama-Florida line—which, if you know much about how different things can be in different areas of the U.S., definitely warrants a mention.

Anyway, Ray and Pancake agree to do some background work for a lawyer involving—oh, hey, Pancake’s long-lost “first love”, one Emily Patterson, who has filed for divorce from her husband, Sean.

After Emily fails to show up at the meeting Pancake has set with her in tiny Fairhope (where she’s been living, lo, these many years—since right after the sixth grade, you’ll recall), he heads out to her farmhouse, only to find the front door open and her car still there. He knows something isn’t right… and finds out how very not-right, the following day, when her body—along with that of a man she’d been seeing since separating from Sean—is found in a neighbor’s field, shot point-blank, execution style.

With the divorce now moot, there’s nothing for the team to do, though… until Emily’s younger brother, a Marine serving in the Middle East, hires them to investigate why this horrible thing happened to his sister. So, back to Fairhope they go.

What they find, though, doesn’t add up to much; Emily and Sean’s pending divorce was seemingly amicable (with each having since moved on to new relationships), and neither was into anything illegal or dangerous—certainly nothing the team can dig up, to call for a mob-style execution.

But, as anyone who’s ever lived in a small town knows, things are rarely as they appear on the surface… and nearly everyone has some skeletons buried somewhere.
_______________

It’s clear the author has a good feel for his characters… and assumes the reader does, too. (I actually like that approach—there’s not a ton of backstory or repetition, which is how an every-book-rehash feels if you’re a previous reader.) And, I found them more-or-less likable enough: Jake is cocky—the stereotypical smart-ass with a chip on his shoulder, who gets by on his charm and a keen instinct; Nicole is smart, sexy, and basically perfect (though every mention of how this gorgeous woman who turns heads wherever she goes doesn’t wear ANY makeup because “she doesn’t need to” elicited eye rolls from me, as only a male author is apt to buy into that); Ray, a retired Special Services kind of figure, who’s canny, connected, a little distant, and more than a little mysterious; and Pancake, who—for me, at least—was the star, with his combination of humor, smarts, likability, and strength.

And, the mystery itself—the murder of Emily and her boyfriend, and everything that comes after—is well-plotted, with ample surprises along the way to keep me turning the pages.

If you enjoy small-town tales of suspense set along the Gulf Coast, you could do worse than Rigged.

~GlamKitty

I'm not a fan of the 'good old boy' style of writing so that,along with the odd points of view = first person and third person mixed - was distracting to me. The characters are ok - when I can keep them straight - and the story was lively. I know some people will love this book. I thought it was 'ok'.