A review of the novel "Valentino Pier."

This book is from Raven Books, an imprint of Orca Book Publishers,  under the rubric “Rapid Reads”and is classed as Adult Fiction.  My copy is an advanced one from uncorrected proofs.

The plot is fairly straight forward: the protagonist, PI Gulliver Dowd, kindly searches for a street urchin’s dog.  Upon finding the dog and attempting to return it, Dowd discovers the boy badly beaten and left for dead not far from Valentino Pier.  The rest of the book is the search for reasons and happenstances, a threat on Dowd’s life materializes and there are a series of strange and outlandish events that can only be called bizarre clues. 

I must be frank in that while I liked the idea of the plot I found the writing was at best weak.  Upon setting out on the first chapter I thought the author was attempting to emulate Ernest Hemingway’s famous terse and understated style or perhaps that of one of the more hard boiled detectives popular many years ago.  I was quickly disabused of this notion.  It really was the simpler style of “See Spot. See Spot run.”  

What makes this discovery all the more bizarre is the fact that the author, Reed Farrel Coleman has seventeen published novels, is a three time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year and, to top it off, a two-time Edgar Award nominee.  Perhaps the “adult fiction” this book was listed under was meant to read “tiny tots.” At least it was a fast read.