Review: Blowing Smoke by George Hiegel

Published: October 2013

Pages: 161

Synopsis: “This is detective crime fiction. Neal Caterski is a middle aged private detective who is troubled by many personal demons. Clinically depressed and unfulfilled by both his personal and professional life, a woman from his past resurfaces. a married woman with whom he has had a past, stormy relationship. She is the wife of one the city's wealthiest and most powerful men. His is a family with a dark, hidden past. Caterski is asked by the woman's sister to find incriminating information on the man. Before the case is barely warm, thw woman is found dead from a single gunshot wound to head. There is evidence that the death was a suicide. But there is also evidence of a coverup initiated by the woman's husband. Catersk wants to know the truth even if it kills him. And it just might.”

Rating: ***

I received a free copy of Blowing Smoke in exchange for an honest review.

Blowing Smoke is a first person narrative from the point of view of Neal; a private investigator. We are introduced to Neal and his partner Alex (working partner not relationship partner) just before an old client is found dead, which instigates the plot. This was very well written and easy to read and follow. As the book went on, I found the characters less and less believable, and the way they reacted seemed less authentic the more you read. For example, I wasn't convinced by Alex's behaviour with regards to taking her clothes off and demanding to sleep with Neal as I felt this didn't really fit with the rest of her character or her backstory. If she was in/had been in a bad relationship with her husband, would she be trying to throw herself into a physical relationship with someone else?

It was interesting how the main antagonist was referred to by Neal, Alex and other characters, but the reader did not encounter them until about 70 pages in. This left the reader able to conjour up their own image of this character and then either have this image confirmed or challenged. For me, my view of Mr Winters was challenged as I had him built up in my mind but during the first meeting he wasn't at all how I imagined. I also felt he held the power throughout the novel, almost like a puppeteer subtly controlling all of the others. This was confirmed during the initial interview between Mr Winters and Neal, as Neal seemed to fall apart leaving Mr Winters the stronger character who came out of the meeting better off.

It was another clever idea that the reader never met Donna in the flesh, so to speak. We hear about her through Neal's memories and dialogue or other characters and we see her dead, but we never encountered her living. I think Donna is almost like a ghost throughout the novel, affecting Neal's thoughts, motivations and actions but we never encounter her, almost like the smoke mentioned in the title.

There were a few plot points that didn't seem authentic, and I couldn't quite just go along with them, for example Neal breaking into the funeral home and just wandering around the house of a suspected murderer unsupervised. There were also a lot of women throwing themselves at Neal (Alex, Donna's daughter) and for me that didn't really fit with the rest of the plot. I don't think that added to the plot at all and was possibly there to shock the reader?

Looking back I feel there could have been more to Blowing Smoke, in a way that I can't quite explain. I didn't get the impression that Neal was a particularly effective private investigator, and the book would have had the same outcome if Neal were simply a regular guy and Alex was his friend. The fact they worked together in a private investigation business didn't seem to have any impact, for me anyway. Or maybe I read it wrong. For me, the main part of the plot was the murder and subsequent investigation, whereas possibly Neal's situation and Alex's alcoholism were the main plot points and the murder investigation was an aside. I think it depends on whether you as a reader prefer your books plot driven or character driven, Blowing Smoke was definitely character driven rather than plot driven in my opinion, and for me this just didn't click as well as I would have hoped.

Blowing Smoke just needed a really good edit. There were letters missing from words, tying errors such as 'tp' rather than to and 'mt' rather than my, and on occasion new paragraphs started two thirds of the way into a line. There were a few sentences that did not make sense. They read almost as though they were a literal translation of the sentence from another language with the words in the wrong order, or possibly as though English is not the author's first language. I felt these occurrences did inhibit the flowing of the book, as you had to stop and try to think what the intended meaning was.

A solid 3*, and I would be interested to read more by George Hiegel.