Book:’Dividend on Death’ by Brett Halliday – January 2nd, 2017
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Jan.02, 2017, under Books
Dividend on Death by Brett Halliday
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was pretty sure I’d read this before, but after reading it, I’m not so sure. I have multiple copies of this book from over decades and can’t find a marking that i had read it. The best thing about Goodreads is keeping a reader straight about their book activities.
This is the first of the Shayne series and, after having read a good 40 or more of them, this was the writer’s launch without a lot of the settings and characters that would later populate the series. This is also a rocky story. Far less sleek than later Shayne books written by Dresser. After Dresser the series really goes down hill. This is far better than any of those.
Shayne, as a character, is far less developed as in future books. A few of his characteristics were still to come. That makes him a bit harder to understand. The rest of the characters are well written. With Painter and Gentry nearly identical to their characters in future books. This book makes it real obvious why Dresser later added a newspaper reporter pal for Shayne.
The settings are also far more sparse. In other Shayne books, knowing Florida as well as i do, i could actually follow where Shayne was going on either side of the bridge.
Bottom line: I recommend this book! 8 out of 10 points.
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