tPolice Lieutenant Jack (Jacqueline) Daniels is back on the trail of a sociopathic mass murderer with connections to the gingerbread man from WHISKEY SOUR. She isn’t sure if it is the same person or a copycat. She does know that the victims are primarily people she knew, people connected to the previous case.tThe plot has many twists and turns as well as more gory details than I am willing to read. (I skipped those segments.) It also has suspense and humor and kept my interest. One funny scene has Jack calling a former boyfriend and immediately apologizing, saying she still loved him and asking if she could go to his place only to find she dialed the wrong number. tMany of the characters from previous books are here: Her partner, Herb Benedict, FBI Special Agents George Dailey and Jim Coursey (whom she seriously does not respect), Harry McGlade, an obnoxious reporter with television connections, and the family of Charles Kork, the Gingerbread Man. New characters include Alex, an adult undergoing psychotherapy with a history of an abusive, religious fanatic father and Holly Frakes, competitive gun-lover and Harry’s fiancee. tJack makes several questionable decisions. She takes a competitive gun-loving civilian whom she barely knows with her on the investigation, going to places that are clearly illegal for non-authorized people to visit. She lets her cell phone run out of power.tJack’s mother is in a vegetative state, in a long-term acute-care facility, receiving artificial hydration and nutrition though she can breathe without assistance. Jack visited her frequently but said normal procedure called for her to schedule visits or call first so the staff could clean her up. “For what this place cost, relatives tended to get angry if the loved ones they were visiting had a dirty diaper.” Having visited many people in many nursing homes for many years, I have never called first and would never do so. Residents should be checked and cleaned regularly to prevent bed sores and other health problems. To have to call first would set off alarms that they residence might be providing inferior service. When Jack got there, she found they tried calling her but called her landline rather than her cell phone. She also had to wait ten minutes while they cleaned her mother. At that point, she should have involved an ombudsman and looked for another location for her mother.tI liked the way technical terms were explained. Jack should have been familiar with them. When the FBI explained Vicky, the ViCAT computer to her, she thought, “Everytime they dropped by, they explained Vicky to me. Perhaps I had a sign around my neck that said, ‘Tell me again, I’m an idiot.’” Of course, the term was explained for the reader but Konrath uses the two words (“Vicky” and “ViCAT”) together so often that I wonder if he thinks his readers are idiots, to use his word.tThis book was a free Amazon download.
Detective Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels has a problem. It isn’t just that her boss wants her fired. It isn’t just that her overweight partner Herb might be facing colonic cancer. It isn’t that the actress her ex-boyfriend cast to play her in the television he produces is about a baker’s dozen too many dress sizes large for the role. It isn’t that her mother is in a coma and her mother’s cat, Mr. Friskers, is determined to hamstring Jack in both of her ankles. It isn’t any of things problems. It seems her old opponent, the serial killer known as “The Gingerbread Man” may have raised himself up from the dead and is trying to kill her and all of her friends and acquaintances.Rusty Nail is the third novel in a series that started with Whiskey Sour, moved on to Bloody Mary, and now we find ourselves mixing Drambui with perfectly good Scotch. It’s enough to drive a reviewer to drink. I discovered this series last year, and buzzsawed through them, alternately chortling and retching. JA Konrath writes funny and nasty, simultaneously. I think the man might be possessed by the split personality of a manic-depressive set of Siamese twins with serious sibling rivalry. I don’t know how anything can be this dark and this damn funny at the same darned time.All right, all right, I know some of you are trying to figure out why I’m reviewing a detective thriller in the pages of Cemetery Dance. The fact is this series could just as easily fit right into the horror section of any respectable bookstore. Like I said, JA Konrath writes nasty.Let’s dissect a couple of Rusty Nail examples, shall we? For starters, how about that gent who is force fed his own intestines? Or how about that other fellow who Konrath gags with a mouthful of fish hooks? Not to mention a clan of bible-belt flagellating seriously anti-social serial-killing sociopaths who could give lessons in pure carnal mayhem to Leatherface’s fabled Texas family.Just plain nasty.Rusty Nail is a fast tense read. Konrath’s prose is so damned translucent you could read him drunk. Think Hiassen or Dave Barry, with a little Hannibal Lector thrown in. Rusty Nail alternately horrifies and hilarifies you. That’s an awfully hard line to walk, drunk or sober, yet Konrath walks it with the ease of the Flying Wallendas walking a two by four tight rope. The only real beef I had with the book was his treatment of the FBI agents. I felt he went a little bit overboard with his salsa band suspects and polo playing felons. Bluntly put, the FBI agents are just a little too stupid to be believable. Perhaps Konrath realized this, because he did eventually rein in his all-too wicked sense of humour and allow the agents in question to actually contribute to the solving of the case.Rusty Nail winds up with one of the wildest shoot-em-ups imaginable. I highly recommend this entire series.yours in storytelling,Steve Vernon
What do You think about Rusty Nail (2006)?
I liked the character well enough & the writing but for me the light-hearted approach clashed horribly with the slasher the serial killer motif and the trail of millions of corpses. OK the body count is not quite into 7 digits but it is ridiculously high and the cops are just not all that bothered. I won't be reading any more (unless I forget of course with my spectacularly poor aged memory!) because I don't much like gruesome serial killer stuff. I prefer my detective novels baddies to produce single digit corpses per book. Dexter's body count is too high but that has an interesting twist at least.The heroine spends a lot of time describing her outfits and shoes - and for someone who appears to have outgoings far exceeding my assumption of what a cop earns, she has a *lot* of these outfits and fancy shoes. Perhaps that would be more interesting to people who don't just put on a clean t-shirt + jeans each day but it quickly got tedious for dowdy little me. And to prove my latent sexism I think I found it more annoying once I noticed the copyright is for Joe Kranath and thus that the author is male. What does he know about chick's clothes / shoes let alone care?!
—Margaret
J.A. Konrath is one of the most engaging fiction writers that I've stumbled across lately. His writing is fast paced. He draws the scenes and characters beautifully without being too wordy. His plots are not easily predictable. I've listened to 4 of his books in audiobook format. Narrated by Dick Hill and Sue Breck, the characters really come to life. How Dick Hill can do 2 - 3 male characters with Chicago accents and make each one unique is a testament to his talent as a reader. Breck is equally as skilled with the female voices and has a way of making the listener feel everything that Jack is feeling.But back to the writing of Rusty Nail....The humor and banter of the characters is so enjoyable and certain characters steal every scene. Can't get enough of them. Unfortunately in this book, the light hearted banter and comaraderie is mixed into a story line with some of the most grizzly and gruesome acts by the killers that I've read lately. I ended up fast forwarding through so much of the sadism to get to funny parts. The ups and downs in adrenaline that this book causes in a reader can be uncomfortable. I wish Mr Konrath had toned it down a notch. After all, we are regular people looking for entertainment with a good read....not sadomasochists. Granted, there is a psycho in every book, but this one is too 'in your face'. Safe to say, it's my least favorite Daniels book so far. Really hard to rate because writing and characters are a 5+ but the pyscho details make it below zero for me.
—Greta Watson
Definitely more gruesome than Whiskey Sour & Bloody Mary but still has the comedic banter that relieves the seriousness of the crimes.Holly made a face and shoved my shoulder. "That's not true." "It's true. He also emasculated himself."She mouthed the word emasculated, and then said, "He cut his own dick off?"I nodded. "He lost his luggage, and both carry-ons." I didn't like all aspects of Rusty Nail and had to take breaks in between reading because of the appalling nature of the crimes; however, I find the series engaging and will read book 4, Dirty Martini. Rusty Nail gets 3.5 stars for a gruesomely violent tale.
—Meka♥books
