Review of Arsenic and Old Men
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John Christopher
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Review of Arsenic and Old Men
[Following is a volunteer review of "Arsenic and Old Men" by Glenn Ickler.]
What happens when three comedic friends with a taste for investigation go on vacation only to get tangled with a murder case? The book is called Arsenic and Old Men and is about Mitch and his friends, Al and Dave on this three-day trip to Martha's Vineyard. The plot begins with the three friends meet Richard Rylander at a nearby beach. Richard is a lawyer that talked about Dave's uncle, Walt Jerome, who has recently passed away due to a heart attack. Shortly after, it is later identified through an autopsy that Walt actually had died of arsenic poisoning. Mitch, Al, and Dave now have more on their plate as they attempt to solve this case for both themselves and as a story for the press that both Mitch and Al are working for, called Daily Dispatch.
Glenn Ickler has provided the reader with another part of the Mitch and Al series of investigative crime work being a report-photographer duo. The best thing about this book being part of a series is that it can stand on its own relatively well. This being my first book from this author, I did not feel being left out at all from not reading any of his previous works on this series. If his order works are done the same way, you can technically still enjoy each of them in any order. The story is filled with good world-building, so you can easily enjoy and imagine the scenery provided in this book. As the main cast is from the press, the author has provided readers with some rational progression on what reporters and photographers would do in such situations, lest it's at comedic sections.
Although I was able to finish the end of the book, I feel that this book was not meant for my tastes. There is a number of things that I did not like about it. The first is about the earlier chapters of the book. At the beginning of the story, the main cast would be Mitch, Al, and Dave with everyone's wives. I would sometimes need to read back some sections just to see who's speaking, and to whom. There's also a lot of side characters that appear only in 1-2 pages. I feel like there's a section that you could remove or skip without even changing the overall feel of the book. The author also had used similar-sounding names for the characters, which doesn't help at all. For example, there are about seven characters in this book that has their names start with the letter "D". You can imagine how frustrating it is to read how Dave interviews Dorie, on how she and Dolly are related while going back and forth in saying the names. The jokes in the book also felt dated and meant for the 90s, when this book was published in 2018. Most are either dated jokes or puns and one-liners. There's not much going on from the first two-thirds of the books aside from joke-slinging and banter from the three, then some short investigation sequence, and Mitch's update to his wife and his boss back home.
There would be some typos that I've noticed from the book. It does not distract a reader from the overall experience, as it is barely noticeable in my opinion. Overall, I'm giving this book two out of four stars. The first reason for me removing a start point on it is that I found the first two-thirds of the book quite boring and monotonous and that there's not much happening on it. The author can easily make this around 150-200 pages in total given the way he has written the last third of it. The second reason why I am removing a star point along with the negative points I mentioned earlier is about the ending. Without spoiling much of the plot, if feel that the book had a very anti-climatic ending. The way towards the very end feels very linear and there was not much to expect from it by then as the build-up that the author made is almost immediately removed shortly after one sequence.
This book is geared toward people who enjoy the comedic style of the 90s, puns, and banter. I would not recommend this for fans of crime and investigation media, as there's so little of it on this book, and mostly is overshadowed by the jokes thrown by the characters. I also would not recommend this to younger audiences, as there would be instances of swearing, male and female objectification, and borderline harassment yet was considered as jokes and those who don't enjoy the comedic style described above.
******
Arsenic and Old Men
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
What happens when three comedic friends with a taste for investigation go on vacation only to get tangled with a murder case? The book is called Arsenic and Old Men and is about Mitch and his friends, Al and Dave on this three-day trip to Martha's Vineyard. The plot begins with the three friends meet Richard Rylander at a nearby beach. Richard is a lawyer that talked about Dave's uncle, Walt Jerome, who has recently passed away due to a heart attack. Shortly after, it is later identified through an autopsy that Walt actually had died of arsenic poisoning. Mitch, Al, and Dave now have more on their plate as they attempt to solve this case for both themselves and as a story for the press that both Mitch and Al are working for, called Daily Dispatch.
Glenn Ickler has provided the reader with another part of the Mitch and Al series of investigative crime work being a report-photographer duo. The best thing about this book being part of a series is that it can stand on its own relatively well. This being my first book from this author, I did not feel being left out at all from not reading any of his previous works on this series. If his order works are done the same way, you can technically still enjoy each of them in any order. The story is filled with good world-building, so you can easily enjoy and imagine the scenery provided in this book. As the main cast is from the press, the author has provided readers with some rational progression on what reporters and photographers would do in such situations, lest it's at comedic sections.
Although I was able to finish the end of the book, I feel that this book was not meant for my tastes. There is a number of things that I did not like about it. The first is about the earlier chapters of the book. At the beginning of the story, the main cast would be Mitch, Al, and Dave with everyone's wives. I would sometimes need to read back some sections just to see who's speaking, and to whom. There's also a lot of side characters that appear only in 1-2 pages. I feel like there's a section that you could remove or skip without even changing the overall feel of the book. The author also had used similar-sounding names for the characters, which doesn't help at all. For example, there are about seven characters in this book that has their names start with the letter "D". You can imagine how frustrating it is to read how Dave interviews Dorie, on how she and Dolly are related while going back and forth in saying the names. The jokes in the book also felt dated and meant for the 90s, when this book was published in 2018. Most are either dated jokes or puns and one-liners. There's not much going on from the first two-thirds of the books aside from joke-slinging and banter from the three, then some short investigation sequence, and Mitch's update to his wife and his boss back home.
There would be some typos that I've noticed from the book. It does not distract a reader from the overall experience, as it is barely noticeable in my opinion. Overall, I'm giving this book two out of four stars. The first reason for me removing a start point on it is that I found the first two-thirds of the book quite boring and monotonous and that there's not much happening on it. The author can easily make this around 150-200 pages in total given the way he has written the last third of it. The second reason why I am removing a star point along with the negative points I mentioned earlier is about the ending. Without spoiling much of the plot, if feel that the book had a very anti-climatic ending. The way towards the very end feels very linear and there was not much to expect from it by then as the build-up that the author made is almost immediately removed shortly after one sequence.
This book is geared toward people who enjoy the comedic style of the 90s, puns, and banter. I would not recommend this for fans of crime and investigation media, as there's so little of it on this book, and mostly is overshadowed by the jokes thrown by the characters. I also would not recommend this to younger audiences, as there would be instances of swearing, male and female objectification, and borderline harassment yet was considered as jokes and those who don't enjoy the comedic style described above.
******
Arsenic and Old Men
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Veterans Day by J. J. Jorgens
