Fun House by Chris Grabenstein

[EthanJones]

Hi everyone,

Please enjoy my review of Fun House by Chris Grabenstein.

Thanks,

Ethan


If you avoided watching the Jersey Shore reality TV show, you will want to avoid reading this book.

Fun House opens up with the promise of action and investigation, since the two main characters are police officers and the book is marketed as a mystery. But soon enough it falls into a slow-paced melodrama and a description of what a copycat Jersey Shore show sounds like. There are the F-bombs or bleeps on almost every other page. The dialogue is stiff, with numerous quotes borrowed from Bruce Springsteen songs and other pop culture of the 1980s. The narrator’s interruptions to explain unimportant or minute details interrupts the disbelief and the storyline. Numerous unnecessary references to the previous book in the series serve only to push the reader toward buying that book.

The investigation of John Ceepak and his partner, Danny Boyle intersects with the rowdy life of the Fun House contestants. One of them agrees to help them catch a notorious heroin dealer. Ceepak and Boyle fail miserably in laying a perfect trap and the contestant ends up dead. Will Ceepak and Boyle resolve this mystery and catch their man?

[AnneGlynn]

Is this the entire review? Is there any wrap-up, any reason (at all) to recommend the novel?

[EthanJones]

Hi Anne:

Thanks for your reply. There is no reason to recommend this novel.

Sincerely,

Ethan