Book Review: Buzz Monkey

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

Buzz Monkey     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Sam Hill
Class/Genre:   Mystery

Hill gets off to a great start with his suspense fiction career in this one, I hope we see many more books by him.

Top Kiernan likes the physical charge he gets when his adrenaline flows at maximum volume. Hence the book title "Buzz Monkey." Top runs a small research firm, which specializes in fact checking for authors of various types. Top also has a flair for remembering the first use of a wide variety of famous quotes - from Yogi Berra to Ralph Waldo Emerson. (In one of the more delightful moments of the book, Top resorts to Emerson to help him convince a lady to join him in the sack.)

As a sideline to his research company, Top takes assignments from a group which looks for mercenary workers for projects which fly under law enforcement radar. But some of his assignments have not concluded well, and Top struggles with unpleasant dreams. His contacts in this nefarious world are what convinces just about everybody else in the book that he is hiding a large stash of money. From local law enforcement, to a refugee from the IRA, to a local drug kingpin also want the money and are prepared to kidnap and kill to get it.

"Buzz Monkey" is suspenseful without being overtly violent. It's funny, without losing the tense edge invoked by the title. The characters, particularly Top's sidekick Benny and a forlorn clerk at a used vinyl record shop are wonderful.

Highly recommended!

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM