Island Life (Five Star First Edition Mystery) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)When someone that has been intimately connected to you for twenty years disappears, how do you move on with your own life? Jack Holm has to learn how to do just that when his flight attendant wife doesn't return home following what Jack thought was a day of shopping.
Days go by without word from Jack's wife. He doesn't panic at first because he thinks she may have taken a flight and not informed him or their son and daughter. And since the couple's relationship has been strained, he is initially concerned, but doesn't panic. He does share his concerns about her disappearance with his therapist. But he also shares that he wishes his wife were dead.
When she is found murdered, Jack finds himself involved in events that threaten his family and his own life. The police suspect him of murder and Child Protection wants to take his kids. The real complication, and perhaps danger, is that his family is being spied on. But who is doing the spying? And why?
Jack is forced to deal with the loss of his wife, a precarious financial situation, that fact that he is facing a murder charge and that his children are grieving. And his sister-in-law and mother-in-law are not helping matters.
Phone calls, a mysterious CD containing child pornography, and the Asian mob, all send Jack on a wild ride to find the answers to his wife's murder. If he isn't successful, he may lose everything.
Island Life is a dark and exciting novel. The plot sizzles and the emotion is powerful.
Armchair Interviews says: Those who love thrillers will surely enjoy Island Life.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Island Life (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

Click here for more information about Island Life (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)My copy of Jack Engelhard's SLOT ATTENDANT came this afternoon. As I was reading another truly engrossing novel at the time and NEVER read more than one book at a time, I set myself the modest goal of reading chapter one today, then finishing the other book tomorrow, thereafter reading this long-eagerly anticipated story solely until completion.
You know what happens to the "best laid plans...." Likely you do in Gaelic as well as English.
What happens is, here it is almost 2AM and I just finished SLOT ATTENDANT. I could NOT put it down. I could not stop until I knew as much as the author cared to tell me about every absorbing subplot, as well as learning heaps about both casinos, in which I have a certain rooting interest, and the world of writing and publishing...a world so important to me and many people I deeply care about.... not until I learned the outcome of protagonist Jay Leonard's desperate battle to regain both confidence in and respect for himself.
Having lost both myself once upon a time, I found myself quickly empathizing with his brilliantly orchestrated struggle. I FELT for this man...Jack Engelhard is that kind of writer...superlatively combining personal experience, the experience of others, and a truly vivid, thoroughly grounded imagination to paint this compelling portrait.
My only negative thought is I wish there were more...more pages I mean...like maybe three hundred or so added to this perfectly-ended [you'll see what I mean when you read it!] novel at page 296 or so.
No, reluctantly I must agree with the author...it ended at absolutely the right point, telling just what it should, not telling the rest. Just right.
The Reader is the King or Queen of this novel. For this is a book fashioned to the unique mind, as diverse as they necessarily are, of each and every one of its readers. Once again, you will see exactly what I mean having read it.
As with any Engelhard novel, the characters are people we've all met in one form or another, yet often driven into way above average moral and practical challenges calling for breathlessly-awaited responses. The dialogue is sharp and engrossing. The elements of both mystery and deeply personal conflict are introduced and compelling from the very beginning. The ending is anyone's guess, and guess you will....it's guaranteed.
In my preview, I opined that this would be a book with wisdom of,by and for writers. And indeed it is. Yet no wisdom was ever imparted more entertainingly...not to mention at times emotionally. The protagonist Jay Leonard shines in his moodiness...his dilemmas...his deep disappointments. He is the product of a life filled with war, boxing, hustling, martial arts, getting the story as a reporter, and playing the ponies. He is also part of a loving marriage whose partners struggle to sustain one another as they share a dream...a dream only he by his choices can ultimately make happen. His choices alone cannot realize the dream, but they could sure destroy it...and therein lies the tale.
Jay Leonard is a writer. He and his wife Melanie's dream is rooted in his writing. Writing is what Jay Leonard personally is about...both his burning passion and the foundation for his self-respect. He had a smash-hit bestseller cum movie six years before...but now cannot get past the same string of rejections that marked his early starving days. He only beats starving now by working as a slot attendant at a casino, the bottom of the pile for someone who walked the red carpet to the applause of adoring fans at his book's cinematic world premiere. Yet it is an identity he is becoming all too comfortable with....a comfort he ultimately knows would kill him...because he's a WRITER.
Through his eyes we see up close and in the face the world of an employee at a gambling casino. We see what this microcasm of life itself is like, populated as it is by people who feel that life has cheated them and are there to set it all right at last...only to lose again.
Surveying his situation, Jay Leonard takes off on Julie Andrews' bright-eyed saying in SOUND OF MUSIC that when God closes a door, He opens a window somewhere. Jay Leonard's take is, "when a door closes, another door closes."
And yet he keeps trying...mostly...and this is the votive force of this story. The reader shortly finds himself caught up with this man's travail as well as with several other intriguing subplots and characters.
For a quick, brisk read brimming with pathos and dignity, humor and mystery, hope and despair, love and lust, corporate autocracy and little guys who won't knuckle under....you won't want to miss SLOT ATTENDANT.
John W. Cassell

Click Here to see more reviews about: Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist

The novel is about a man who finally accepts his limitations but refuses to give up on his dream, a paradox, yes, but that's life. The action takes place in the world of publishing, but also in an Atlantic City casino where a writer, Jay Leonard, who once enjoyed glory as a novelist now finds himself down and out as a slot attendant. This is as low as it gets and while he holds somewhat to his dream of a comeback-- he continues to try his luck and knock on doors in the world of publishing with his latest book -- it occurs to him that this may be it after all. He's reached the end. His wife urges him upward, but, even as he despairs, he begins to face his humbled position almost gladly,even with some pride. He takes plenty of abuse down on the casino floor from supervisors and customers. But it's not much different from the literary world that he's been pursuing, and besides, these Atlantic City people aren't so bad. Are they any worse than the literary elites that keep rejecting him? Where does a man go after the world has turned its back on him? What if he is right and the rest of the world is wrong? These are questions that haunt Jay Leonard throughout the novel. Throughout his inner rage, Jay Leonard begins to make his peace. He submits and surrenders. Or does he?

Click here for more information about Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist