Book: Monkeewrench by P.J. Tracy


Good cop thriller; reminiscent of John Sandford

P.J. Tracy
Monkeewrench
Signet, 2004
ISBN: 0-451-21157-X
$6.99
404 pages (main text)

In Monkeewrench, we have: a serial murderer loose in Minneapolis, a software company, colorful cops, and a smart sheriff and deputies from rural Wisconsin. Well then, this must be a John Sandford novel. But it's not. It's by P.J. Tracy (a pseudonym for the mother-daughter writing team of P.J. and Traci Lambrecht). Still, if you like John Sandford's Prey novels, you'll like Monkeewrench. The biggest difference is that Monkeewrench has more funny moments than any of Mr Sandford's novels.

In the book, Monkeewrench is the name of a small software company that has just released an online game in which a player tries to solve a series of murders that are presented as interactive tableaux. But not long after the game goes online, someone starts committing the murders for real.

The plot is full of twists, the characters are interesting, and the ending is satisfyingly exciting. What else is there to want in a cop thriller? There are a few things that people do with computers in the book are rather improbable, but I didn't care much; this is a cop thriller, not a software manual.

Posted: Tue - August 10, 2004 at 09:28   Main   Category: 

©