4 out of 4 stars
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I have a soft spot for mysteries told in the first person with a witty narrator, and The Amazon Detective Agency by Patrick Oster definitely hits that spot. Protagonist and amateur sleuth Melissa McGinty is a Supreme Court police officer who works the night shift. By day, she heads the Amazon Detective Agency, named so because of it’s all-female staff. One night on patrol, Melissa finds Supreme Justice Oglethorpe dead. Considered a suspect because she found the body, Melissa decides to get her girls on the case, both to exonerate herself and to get her detective agency on the map.
However, tracking down the killer turns out to be more complicated than Melissa could have imagined. Literally everyone is a suspect, including the president of the United States, big business executives, and Oglethorpe’s cleaning lady. Can Melissa and her Amazons crack the case before it’s too late?
This is a delightfully fun mystery steeped in politics. The story hits the ground running in chapter one with the finding of Oglethorpe’s body, and the pacing stays strong throughout. Melissa’s hilarious voice, the crisp dialogue, and lots of laugh-out-loud humor make this book a breeze to read. I especially loved the Amazons, who reminded me a bit of a high-tech Scooby Doo all-girl gang, with Melissa’s boyfriend standing in for the lovable canine companion. Tesla—the hacker of the group, appropriately named after Nikola Tesla—is my favorite. If Melissa needs to get in touch, she leaves a note at a designated location, and Tesla appears. I really want to know more about Tesla. At the same time, I never want to know because it would destroy the magic.
There is a lot of politics in this book, particularly about the election process. At a few points, the amount of information felt a bit overwhelming, but those places were few and far between. Oster does an excellent job of keeping the information understandable and conveying it in Melissa’s entertaining way. At the end of the book, Oster lays out his background as a political journalist and explains the election history in the book is accurate. Personally, my knowledge of voting extends to showing up on voting day and pressing the buttons. I would have enjoyed this book without the in-depth look at the processes, but having them included didn’t detract from my reading experience. I actually learned some stuff, which is never a bad thing for me.
The Amazon Detective Agency takes place primarily in the Washington D.C. area. I’ve been to D.C. a couple of times and remember the feel of the city. We saw very little of the city in this book, and sometimes, this felt like it was taking place in a small town. There also isn’t much in the way of a subplot about Melissa’s life. Her investigation gets her in trouble at work, but that’s as personal as things get. I also got the impression from various lines throughout the book that Melissa was narrating the events as if looking back on them. She would drop hints starting with phrases like “little did I know” at intervals. For me, this served to dull the suspense a bit. The story wouldn’t suffer if those tell-tale lines were removed. None of this bothered me beyond being briefly taken out of the story, but readers who find these things overly annoying may wish to skip this book.
For a wonderful story with truly entertaining characters,
I rate The Amazon Detective Agency 4 out of 4 stars. The little things that interrupted my reading experience didn’t bug me enough to lower my rating. Mystery is not a genre I read often. This one’s title caught my interest, and I’m so glad I picked it up. I’d love to read about more adventures from Melissa and her Amazons.
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The Amazon Detective Agency
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