The Ollie Chandler Collection: Skip 2 and Read 1

Ollie Chandler is a police homicide detective.  So, now you’re primed to read a detective novel, right?  Wrong.  Sure Ollie follows police procedure with the assistance of newspaper reporters, but the first two novels (Deadline and Dominion) in this collection are abruptly interrupted by fantasy when we are given long, seemingly endless conversations of the dead in their afterlife and Ollie is only a supporting character to the reporter.  After dutifully keeping my eyes glued to the pages for the first half of the first novel, I decided that if I was ever going to finish the books, I would have to skip the heavenly scenes.  And so I did.

By the time I reached book number 3, I couldn’t wait to finish and be done.  Fortunately, the author tastefully limited the scenes in heaven in Deception.  In fact, I found it to be eminently readable and enjoyable and Ollie was a character I could root for.  So skip the collection and read Deception.

The first two books also contained anachronistic elements.  No one used cell phones and rather than pulling out a smart phone, it was a PDA.  That took me back and not in a good way.  Those elements could have easily been changed in the reprinting of the novels in this collection.  In fact, the author could have polished the first two books to make them more like the third. 

The first book was filled with every political and societal ill that would bother a right-leaning Evangelical Christian.  Yes, the author left no stone unturned in bringing the chip on the shoulder to light. 

The second book provides a thoughtful look at racism.

But it is only the final book, Deception, that steps into its own as a novel that carries you through the story’s twists and turns to the end. 

The Ollie Chandler Collection is selling for $12.99 today, but you can get the paperback of Deception for $6.40, so your choice should be simple. 

 

I received this book free through a book review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.