Featured Reviews

AUTHOR:  Steven Arnett

GENRE:  Dark Comedy

REVIEW:

Steven Arnett shows versatility with the novel Winners and Losers, writing a comedy that is both entertaining and downright funny!  Winners and Losers takes place in a small city in Michigan, and begins with the main character, Tom Slotrak, losing his job as an accountant for a nuclear facility.

I have had the pleasure of reviewing several of Arnett’s books and found Winners and Losers to be a refreshing, light-hearted read! Tom Slotrak in Arnett’s book goes through a series of hilarious confrontations and scenarios after losing his job and winning $20,000,000 from a lottery ticket he purchased with his last $20.

Each character Arnett creates has their own unique persona all the way down to their names, which fit their personality perfectly.  You cannot help but laugh throughout this novel, as Tom Slotrak has to leave Michigan due to a one-night stand he has after breaking up with his fiancé, Erica Wonders.  He goes on the run from a biker gang, heading south.

This is just the start for the main character.  Arnett puts him through a series of trials and tribulations during his travels, including selling fertilizer, condoms, and meeting several intriguing women, some who take advantage of him in a comical fashion.

When you need to laugh uncontrollably, read Winners and Losers: It will take your mind off of the riff-raff of everyday life.  Arnett does it again with a completely different genre, and gets another five-star rating for his creativity and humor, for his content and story-telling, in this book which will keep you laughing right up to the last page!

SYNOPSIS:

Set in a small southern Michigan city in the early 90s, Winners and Losers is a rollicking dark comedy starring Tom Slotrak, a young man who wins the jackpot in the Michigan Lottery and the crazy and (sometimes) adventures he has afterward. He learns the hard way that money can’t buy happiness but that it sure can lead to some very funny and bizarre experiences! At the beginning of the story, Tom is 26 but feels older because he’s bored with his life and feels rootless. He’s engaged to Erica Wonders: She’s smart and good looking and doesn’t treat him too badly, but Tom is bored with the relationship and doesn’t really love her anymore. He’s thinking about how he might be able to break off the engagement without all hell breaking loose. Though Tom is engaged to Erica, when he’s at work he has a hard time keeping his mind and his eyes off clerk and administrative assistant Lena Coffee. Sexy, flirty, and funny, Lena is Tom’s fantasy woman. Rumor has it that she has a boyfriend in a motorcycle gang, but she is just flirty enough and just nice enough to Tom for him to believe it’s not quite impossible that he and Lena could hook up. They end up having a secret affair. However, Tom gets laid off from his job as an accountant at Allied Nuclear Corporation after a plant closing. He soon runs out of money and tries to find a new job but without much luck—eventually having to settle for shoveling manure for minimum wage at Meadowlark Farms. Erica is fed up with him, and it seems as if he’ll soon hit rock bottom. He’s down to his last $17, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, he buys a ticket for the Michigan Lottery at Joe’s Gas Mart. He barely makes the effort to check his ticket again the winning number when it’s announced on TV, but when he does, the seemingly impossible happens: His ticket matches the winning number! Erica is absolutely thrilled, but Tom isn’t as happy as might be expected after such a turn of good fortune. With Tom tagging along, Erica goes on a giant spending spree. When he’s not shopping with Erica, everybody on planet Earth, it seems, tries to hit him up for money. The fortune has made Tom’s alienation from Erica worse, and he ends up breaking off the engagement. The end of his engagement makes him much sadder than he ever would have imagined, but he at least hopes it will be the beginning of a new life for him. Before he even has a chance to think about what he’ll do in the future, though, Lena calls him to tell him her boyfriend found out about their affair and is threatening to kill Tom, so he decides to leave town with hardly a moment’s notice. Now that he has so much money, he doesn’t necessarily think that’s such a bad thing, and he makes his way to Florida after an adventure at a hillbilly bar in Tennessee. Tom ends up in Key West and thinks he’ll like it there, but he gets a shock when he goes to an ATM and is refused a withdrawal. Before long, he learns that Erica has sued him claiming the winning ticket really belonged to her and that a judge in Michigan has frozen his bank accounts! Broke again, Tom must again go out and look for a job. He hires in as a salesman at Florida Guano, where he meets secretary/receptionist Honey Sweetwater. All she seems to do at the office is work on her nails and looked bored. Tom soon finds, however, that she has pretty, mischievous eyes and a great sense of humor. Before long, the two of them are going out together and having a great time. Tom’s career at Florida Guano skids to a halt pretty quickly, but Tom and Honey have quite an adventure when they are invited to the Gothic mansion of Mr. Fabulous, the mysterious billionaire owner of Florida Guano. Finally, the case of Wonders vs. Slotrak goes on trial, and Tom returns to Michigan. A legal battle to end all battles ensues, and Tom knows that the whole rest of his life. Will he end up rich and living a dream with Honey or will he end up right back where he was after he lost his job at Allied

AUTHOR:  Steven Arnett

GENRE:  Suspense;  Murder Mystery

REVIEW:

Steven Arnett once again hits it out of the ballpark with this Suspense, Murder Mystery, Death On Lake Michigan.  Arnett starts this book off, hooking you with a suspenseful murder on Lake Michigan, where the body of Rich Mallon washes up on the shore of the lake.  Mike O’Brian, a reporter for the local newspaper in the resort town of Gull Haven, begins to dig into this murder, and there are twists and turns at every corner with his investigation.  Death on Lake Michigan is filled with these twists and turns, the first of which is Mike O’Brien finding out through his research that Rich Mallon is not the real name of the murdered individual known as Rich Mallon (from a driver’s license that has been located at the deceased’s condo). There is no forensic evidence at the scene of the murder where Rich Mallon/Richard Nearing is found washed ashore with a gash in his head.

Mike O’Brien is even more curious when he finds this information out, and also that the detective with the local Police department, Lt. George Dirkman, has no leads in the case.  Arnett takes you through the full investigation set in the summer of 1973, using background information throughout the book and many interesting characters, some shady and some good.  For the reader, however, it's a who’s who of which people are good and which people are bad.  Mike talks with a variety of suspects/witnesses throughout the book, and just when you think you have this mystery figured out, you find out you are mistaken in your theories, making this a page turner and a must read.

Grant Fields is the first promising lead, as rumor has it Rich and Grant had a horrible argument the night of the murder on Rich’s boat.  Mike O’Brien also finds out through interviewing one of the townsfolk that local businessman Jack Engler has been overheard saying he was going to kill Rich the night of the murder, leading O’Brien to further investigate this. Mike talks with Jack and doesn’t get any information that is useful, so he then follows up on a lead involving Grant Fields, but after interviewing him, his gut instinct tells him that he wasn’t involved.  He continues to interview people in the town who might know something about Rich, but comes up empty handed with no solid leads on the case.

Throughout this book there is a cast of characters that Mike O’Brien interviews, one being Becky Westworth, which changes the course of the investigation and his life in this story. Becky happens to know that Rich Mallon, aka Richard Nearing, is from Chicago, and hands Mike the telephone number and address of Rich’s father and stepmother, Virginia Nearing, who Becky tells him never got along with Rich.  He drives to Chicago, and interviews Virginia Nearing, finding out that her husband, Richards father has terminal cancer and is only expected to live for three more months.  Virginia seems shocked when Mike informs her that Rich has been murdered.

The ending of this book will shake you to your core, with so many suspects you won’t know what to think or believe. Another fascinating character is Lana Bouchard, who ends up murdered because she knew too much about what really happened.  Mike O’Brien becomes obsessed with solving this murder, having his own life is threatened in the process. He not only receives a threatening phone call, telling him to stop snooping into this case, he is also beaten up by two strange men, leading him to believe one of his leads holds water.

The lead that seems to be most logical, is the one involving Virginia Nearing.  Mike believe she could have had Rich killed for the money in his father’s will,  but this book has Mike chasing after many theories.  He even bribes a secretary into revealing the contents of the will, which leads him to believe it is not Virginia Nearing that had Rich killed, because his father left everything to his favorite charity.

Without giving away the entire plot, this book ends with another twist, shocking you to the core with its ending.  Along the way, Mike also finds love, lending another interesting flavor to the book.  This novel deserves and gets a five star review.  It is a must read!!!

AUTHOR:  Steven Arnett

REVIEW:

The Summer of Robert Byron by Steven Arnett is a romance novel that will keep you guessing about the plot with every turn of the page.  I found this highly unusual for a romance novel, and exciting because Arnett does such a wonderful job at keeping you guessing until the very end.  He does a brilliant job setting the background of this book, in the summer of 1966 in a small town in Blue Spring, Michigan.  The main character, Robert Byron, has a fascinating, unyielding personality, and Arnett displays the feelings and character of Robert Byron with such a unique quality that you feel when you're reading, you are actually still getting to know who this character is all the way to the end of the novel.

There are the usual twists and turns that are characteristic of Arnett’s writing in his former suspense novels, but this one flows even more smoothly, leaving you understanding the vulnerability in Robert Byron when he arrives home from the war in Vietnam. He brings home a dark secret that he shares with few people that leave him to question his self-worth.

Because his personality is that of a loner, he sticks to himself, so it is a surprise when he meets the future main woman in his life, Jean Summers, while doing a construction job at her home.  Arnett lays out their relationship, with its ups and downs, exquisitely, leaving you until the last page in suspense if things are going to work out or not.  The couple fights a lot during their relationship, leading you to believe they will not make it.  They go so far as breaking up for a while, and Robert Byron, being the drifter he is, leaves town and gets involved again with a former love, after a bitter breakup. Again, Arnett keeps you wondering if he and Jean will ever be together again.

Although this book is a romance, it rolls out more like a suspense novel, especially when Jean begins a new relationship when Robert has left town.  It takes a serious tragedy, and the main characters themselves questioning their own futures throughout this novel for you to figure out how the story will end, and you don’t find out until the very last page.

I have reviewed several of Arnett’s books and this one by far is the best.  It is a page turner and will keep you guessing, not only as to the intentions of the characters themselves but wondering how two complete opposites like Robert and Jean can ever mesh together as a couple.   You wonder if they could ever make a go of a long-lasting relationship.  This book, The Summer of Robert Byron is a must have, and you would be cheating yourself not to read it.

I enjoy book reviews, but sometimes feel I am reading the book because I have to.  This is not the case with Arnett’s book, The Summer of Robert Byron.  I found myself lost in this novel and finished the book in two days.  This book happily gets a rating of five stars!