2 out of 4 stars
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This is a story about triplets that were separated at birth and grew up living completely different lives. One brother, who is running an illegal "get rich" scheme through the local casino, runs into one of his doppelgangers and makes plans to exploit this coincidence. Unbeknownst to the two others, the FBI agent investigating the casino's schemes is none other than the third brother. A winding tale of misinterpretation, misdirection, and mistaken identity ensues.
The Case of the Missing Corpse by D.M. Stover is a short Crime/Thriller novel that focuses on a casino's life insurance scheme. The story revolves around the lives of three brothers that don’t even know they have siblings, let alone are triplets separated at birth. Moving at a relatively quick pace this book keeps the reader guessing what the next twist will be.
This book has a couple of good things going for it. The most prominent and what I liked most about this book is the theme/plot itself. The potential for a story with three unknown (to each other) brothers getting caught up in a criminal investigation has endless potential. I enjoyed some of the twists that the author embedded in the book based off of this theme. Another thing that I enjoyed about this book is the gentle smattering of light humour, despite the relatively serious undertones of the book.
There were several aspects of this book that I disliked. First, the writing itself lacked depth and seemed quite flat, despite being technically (for the most part) correct. Second, the author has an annoying habit of re-explaining things, often in parentheses or through character's dialogue, that the reader wouldn't yet have had the time to forget. Third, the female characters in the book have no depth at all. After escaping being kidnapped, surviving a high-speed chase with gunfire, and dealing with the death of her husband, one of the characters is still extremely giddy to go clothes shopping with her new “BFF" that she just met. Finally, and what I disliked the most, was how a couple of adult scenes were written. I have no problems with sex scenes in a novel when they are well done/written, but when a phrase like, “she was moving up and down on his very happy man thing" is used, it is fairly off-putting.
Since I really do see potential in the design and plot of the story, I decided to give this book 2 out of 4 stars. The idea behind the book was good enough to merit the second star, but with all of the criticisms I've outlined above, I have to take at least two off. If you are an avid reader of crime novels and can't miss even one, you may still enjoy this book. If you need your literature to be extremely well written, polished to the maximum, and for all your characters to have depth to them, this may not be for you.
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The Case of the Missing Corpse
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