Sparkles and Plods, by Kevin R. Kosar, November 30, 2008 This is Chabon’s first novel, and it reads like it. It’s ambitious, wooly, underdeveloped, messy, and contrived. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is the first-person tale of Art Bechstein, the college-age son of a gangster in Pittsburgh. Art is rather clueless; though he narrates the entire […]
Patricia Cornwell, Post-Mortem (New York...
Post-Mortem- What Fun! by Kevin R. Kosar, May 2009 Sure, the characters’ use of pagers give this novel a slightly dated feel… But Post-Mortem still is well worth reading. It is an enjoyable thriller, and you will not be able to guess who the fiend is until the very end.
Gary Shteyngart, Absurdistan: A Novel (N...
Swung for the Fence but Hit a Flare into Short Right Field, by Kevin R. Kosar, May 15, 2007 During the first third or so of the book, one gets the impression that Shtenyngart is trying to pull off something big, something like Saul Bellow did in The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics) or […]
Frederick Reuss: Henry of Atlantic City ...
A Profound and Very Funny Book, by Kevin R. Kosar, October 21, 1999 This is Frederick Reuss second novel and it is spectacular. I don’t often say that about novels. Indeed, a great many novels I find utterly unbearable. So what makes Henry of Atlantic City worthy of such praise? First- the protagonist of the […]
Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik, and Steve P...
Not Quite the Cardinal of the Kremlin or The Sum of All Fears , by Kevin R. Kosar, May 15, 2007 Yes, this book has Tom Clancy’s name splashed all over it. No, it’s not written by Clancy; rather, Steve Perry and Larry Segriff appear to have penned it. No doubt many readers are put […]
Patricia Cornwell, From Potter’s Field (
Cornwell’s first five books were: Postmortem (1990) Body of Evidence (1991) All That Remains (1992) Cruel and Unusual (1993) and The Body Farm (1994) From Potter’s Field (1995) was her sixth. I have read Postmorten and The Body Farm, and both are quite good. From Potter’s Field is pretty good for about 300 pages, and […]