Sock Monkey Blues

A Joe Box Mystery

A Novel by John Laurence Robinson

Publish America
P.O. Box 151, Frederick MD 21705-0151
ISBN 1-59129-020-1,
265 pp., $21.95, paperback

 

I am running out of superlatives. I have read so many great books lately that in all honesty, I am finding it harder to develop ways to express myself that isn’t a rehash of what I have said before. That would be, not only unfair to you as a reader, and most of all to the authors if it sounds like all I am doing is hyping one book after another. However, in all honesty, Sock Monkey Blues is a fantastic book, one that I think is worthy of all the praise and accolades that I can bestow.

Author John Lawrence Robinson has put together a mystery that has so many things going for it on so many levels, it is hard to narrow it down to just one or two or even ten. Let me start with the style of Mr. Robinson’s writing. He has captured the nuance of conversational dialogue perfectly. His characters live, move, and feel with the use of first person conversation and narrative coming from the main character, Private Investigator Joe Box. The best way to describe this is to picture those old Sam Spade/Phillip Marlow detective movies from the 1930’s where the characters would speak in a voice over, so we would get to know not only their thoughts, but also their feelings on what is going on around them. I have to tell you, I love those movies and that style of writing when it is pulled of well, and Mr. Robinson does that in spades. (Spades, get it-Sam Spade and he…never mind) Yet, even though that style of writing may have a retro feel, it is as fresh as anything else on the shelves.

Part of the charm of Joe Box is his sense of humor as well as his homespun colloquialisms courtesy of his Granny. This detective could stand next to any of the famous ones, Thomas Magnum, the afore mentioned Sam Spade, even the great Columbo, and hold his own. However, if you go into to this thinking you’re going to be reading some good ole boy P.I. you will be in for a real surprise. There is a range and depth to the character that snuck up on me and bowled me over. My compliments Mr. Robinson on pulling that off. You Sir, made this go from a bunch of words on paper to an adventure that I was on with an amazingly witty yet tragic friend. And I use the word friend correctly, because in reading Sock Monkey Blues, that is how I began to think of Joe, as a friend that I not only cared about, but wanted to see nothing bad happen to. And it wasn’t supposed to, it was supposed to be a simple missing child case-it should take a week no more.

Enter “Ground Chuck”, a sick twisted individual that lives only to maim and destroy. He is as evil a character as I have ever read in a book, or seen in a movie. Chuck is cold, heartless, calculating-everything that a nemesis should be. Joe is out manned, outgunned, out smarted and out of time. My heart ached as my fingers turned each page, and I won’t ruin the suspense by telling what happens here, I can however sum it up in one word-wow.

This book, as I said, is deserving of every bit of praise that I can give it. If I have not conveyed how much I enjoyed reading it, the fault lies only in my lack of ability to present that fully, not in the well-crafted writing found in this book itself. If you like mysteries, if you like adventure, if you like humor and pathos, if you like reading an author at the top of his form, then get a copy of “Sock Monkey Blues”. This deserves to be a best seller. This deserves to be a movie. This deserves to be the first of a series. Please.