Review of Precision

[AlliJW71]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Precision" by d.c. scott.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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Precision written by D.C. Scott is the first of five books in the Murder mystery series, featuring returned-from-retirement Detective Jay Magruder. Set in Texas the story follows the life of John Riley Logan, and his many loves, triumphs and losses, as well as a re-kindled romance. John is the owner of a landcape gardening business, talented musician and succesful song writer, as well as a cancer survivor, philanthropist, and hopeless romantic.

This book is very busy, but one of the things that I particulalry enjoyed was the theme of fostering and adoption of both children and animals. John has a very kind heart and throughout the story brings many of both into his home and provides security, love and stability.

Unfortunatley, I found the very large cast of characters and the many and varied sub-plots and back stories a little overwhelming. At times I found myself wondering if I was actually reading a murder mystery, as the story would often spear off into a new direction with no real relevance to the main plot. An example of this would be the intricate description of a football game with each play being described in detail - the description lasted for three pages. I am not a football fan and I found it mind-numbingly boring to read so much detail about something that could have been adequately described in a paragraph or two.
I also found it frustrating to read the dialogue between characters, as contractions have been rarely used, and there is no syncopation in conversation when people are speaking to one another as there would be in everyday speech. This makes the dialogue sound formal and stilted which doesn't tie in with the overall feel of the story.

My rating of this book is 3 out of 5 stars based on the sheer volume of characters and back stories that makes the murder almost irrelevant. Perhaps some of these characters and their stories will come into play in further books in the series, but for a first book I feel there was just too much unnecessary detail that overshadowed the main story. I also expected to be reading a murder mystery - this book does not feel like there is much of a mystery and I was dissapointed as Detective Jay Magruder barely makes an appearance, I was also very dissapointed in the ending.

The recommended audience for this book would be readers who enjoy a detailed and sub-plot heavy story with lots of characters. It may not appeal to die-hard murder mystery fans, but it's hard to say without reading more volumes of the series.

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Precision
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