Grass Tacks: A Drake Manning Mystery (Drake Manning, P.I. Book 2)
About
This short story is the second in a series of mysteries featuring Drake Manning, P.I. Manning is sent to the funeral of a woman he’s never met. He has to figure out who she is, how she died, and why.
Praise for this book
What can a reader say about this mystery inside a riddle hiding behind an enigma? O'Brien's Drake Manning tries to out-noir, and out-snark the likes of Raymond Chandler, and Dash Hammett, and more or less succeeds. The dialogue is laugh out loud fun, the characters (Madeline Skoombotz? Lippy the Lion? en serio?) are noir-ishly delightful, and the plot, what there is of it, makes sense in a back-alley kind of way. If you, dear reader, are in that kind of mood that back alleys, cheap whiskey produced from desk drawers, and things that a case of Kamikaze Swirlies enhances, dig into this fun, quick, entirely predictable but highly entertaining read. Heck, the dialogue itself is worth the price of admission. And who doesn't want to read the sequel, what with 'stop-traffic gorgeous' Maddie & our street-smart pal Drake Manning making sense of coffee and sandwiches together?