Country: USA
Genre: Hardboiled
Pages: 303 kb (eOriginal)
Buy It Here
"Mary, can I get you anything?" Alice said. "A drink of water? An application to a local community college?"
DEATH BY SARCASM is Dani Amore's first novel (that she publishes herself, lady runs quite the empire) and it's a very interesting moment in an author's career because that's when you see if their heart's in the right place. If they're about a good story an the art, rather than self-satisfaction. Mrs. Amore passes the test with flying colors. DEATH BY SARCASM, while it doesn't reinvent the wheel, respects the form and the philosophy of pulp fiction (it's a straightforward hardboiled crime novel) and stars a fresh character for the genre, Mary Cooper. A P.I with deadly wits and a set of values, not a necessarily perfect combination of skills for the depraved streets of Los Angeles. Dani Amore's first novel has been gathering quite a lot of love on Amazon Kindle Store and understandably so. It's right where it should be. At the beginning of a very promising series (read career, here).
Meet Mary Cooper, at the crime scene where her uncle Brent, a former stand-up comedian, has been thoroughly murdered. Being her self-reliant self, she takes on her to be the investigation enhancer that the police needed very much in this case*. By taking that decision, she enters the bizarre and very private world her uncle lived in and manages to piss a lot of people off in the process. Weird old ladies and disgruntled comedians don't take too kindly to somebody plowing into their long kept secrets. Talk about a bunch of unlikely suspects! So Mary spends a whole lot of time dodging bullets and trying to throw a few sarcastic bits in between.
Duct tape was really an unfortunate invention, Mary thought. It seemed like a crutch for people who didn't know how to fix something properly. Take tying someone up, for instance. There were all kind of things a person could use. Rope. Plastic ties. All much easier to use. (...) was a duct tape kind of guy.
DEATH BY SARCASM is extremely character-driven, which works both for an against it. Mary Cooper is an impressive protagonist, because her sarcasm isn't your stereotypical Hollywood badass wit. It's actually a problem. It slips everywhere in her life, she pounces it on people at such a maniacal pace, that she alienates an impressive number of people around her. That includes the cop and a lot of people she should keep close. Knowing that she's family driven and that she's not a nihilistic person (she has a strong set of values), it makes for an interesting dynamic. But Mary and her sarcasm take so much place, I didn't learn much else about Mary Cooper. I know she's good looking, but the absence of a third party look upon her made Mary a little fuzzy at times. I still don't know what kind of woman she is, aside from a family driven sarcasm machine. You know, Philip Marlowe smokes, has an alcohol problem and a tiny, disgusting office. That kind of detail.
Another impressive feat of DEATH BY SARCASM is how Dani Amore understand and integrates the classic hardboiled fiction aesthetic to her work. Her novel is perfectly structure with investigation parts, action sequences and plot twists, that will keep you reading despite knowing where it goes. That's another thing. You think you know, but you don't. I thought I solved the plot about forty percent in, but I was wrong. Well, not really, but I didn't see the bigger picture that Dani Amore was drawing right there in my face. A character driven novel with such good plotting is a little gem indeed.
It's funny to read some of DEATH BY SARCASM lesser reviews on Amazon, because they are abominably unfair. A reviewer complained about the language, counting the number of times Dani Amore used certain words. That's prejudice towards self-published writers if I've ever seen some. Has anybody ever complained about James Patterson's language on Amazon? If anything, Dani Amore is a credit to self-published writers and her presence in the Kindle Store ratings is hard evidence of that. DEATH BY SARCASM is smart, humble and has a foot inside and outside hardboiled conventions. It also looks like a promising beginning to what could be a great series.
*Dani Amore's police is not very useful. Another point for her in my book.