Falling Immortality by Robert Downs

Title: Falling Immortality
Author: Robert Downs
Available at: Amazon

The author sent me a copy of this book, along with a request for review.

When I read the description, I was hoping for something along the lines of Lawrence Sanders’ McNally. The description outstrips the reality, unfortunately.

If you like a detective who is immature, shallow and narcissistic, you’ll love Casey Holden. If you like reading paragraph after paragraph of dialogue and description that have no apparent connection to the story, you’ll love this book. If you’re looking for a well-developed character and a zippy plot, don’t bother spending your money.

I was only 6% into the book the first time I checked to see if I’d read enough to say I’d given it a good effort. I checked several more times before finally giving up right about halfway through. I kept waiting for it to improve, but it didn’t. The murder mystery wasn’t interesting enough to entice me to slog through what the author thinks is witty repartee in order to find out who did it or how it was solved. I found the character of Casey Holden to be shallow and unlikeable. The story moves slowly because the author places more emphasis on showing the reader that Holden is a wise-cracking womanizer than actually moving the story along. Comparing this character to Mike Hammer or James Bond and the plot to one worthy of Mickey Spillane is more laughable than the alleged wise-cracking itself, but certainly in keeping with the narcissistic character of the book.

If this is what men want to read, then I despair for single women everywhere, while being grateful I’m not in the dating game.