Murder Manual

by Steven Womack

Book Overview

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MURDER I LEARNED IN NASHVILLE The bestselling toast of Tennessee, author Robert Jefferson Reed has made big bucks with his little book of folksy homilies like "Never go... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345414470
• ISBN13: 9780345414472
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Fawcett
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.8" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Gentleman with the heart of a boy

What a great book! Murder Manual featured a very likable protagonist (Harry Denton), and in fact, all of the characters, except maybe the love interest, are funny, interesting people. It also has a compelling and believable mystery and plenty of humour. I especially liked the part where Harry Denton found himself in an interview room that he had been told would be a conference room. He noticed the two-way mirror and realized that they were going to sweat him for a while in the room, so he pulled out his pocket knife, opened up the scissors, and began trimming his nose hair in the mirror. The corpse in the book is a hack writer who had hit it big with a book of platitudes, and Denton's remarks about that type of literature are really funny. The author uses a lot of exceedingly authentic internal monologue that is both funny and insightful. Denton has a very interesting character trait in that there is a sense of jubilant innocence and hope about him. I have never seen that before in a P.I. character. Denton kind of reminds me of Connelly's Mickey Haller in the Lincoln Lawyer series. He equals Connelly in his ability to meld perceptive prose, a compelling plot, and well-defined characters, as well. Best of all, Womack never sinks to the kind of terrible Hollywood blockbuster clichés that so many writers of this genre seem to fall prey to. He never goes swirling down the toilet of shooting and fighting and alpha male posturing and hideous defamed corpses and leering serial killers that seem to populate one out of three mysteries/crime dramas I read. He is a skilled enough writer to build suspense into almost every scene, no matter how trivial. Another thing: Womack doesn't have Denton go around dating every woman in sight. In fact Denton's girlfriend is pregnant and sick and stressed and looking terrible, and even so, he loves her like crazy, and all he wants to do in the world is to marry her and be a good father to their child. All of this is so refreshing. With only four reviews on this book, I hesitated to pick it up. I thank all of the other reviewers for recommending it, because it is one of the most truly enjoyable books I've read in a long while. Read by L.J. Ganser (quickly becoming one of my favourite narrators) who read Murder Manual out with a joyousness and energy that both reflected the protagonist's character and made the book engaging. I have a feeling it might have been one of Ganser's favourite books, too. Make sure you have about a day to listen to this book, because you won't want to do anything else. I review only audiobooks. Check out my other reviews, then download, plug in, and never be bored again.

Wonderfully written, wildly entertaining

This is my favorite sort of detective novel, one with colorful characters and a hero who is all-too-human, told with clarity and grace. What an excellent read. If you like books by James Lee Burke, you'll like this even more. Highly recommended.

Addicting read

Womack's latest tale involving the down on his luck private investigator Harry James Denton. This tale has many changes for Denton in the near future(i.e. next book), which I'll leave to the reader to discover what they are. This tale starts off with Harry trying to earn money and on the fringes of being bankrupt. Debating on quitting the P.I. business, Harry comes across a client who wants to catch her very wealthy and famous husband ( who is the writer of a #1 book ) having an affair with his secretary. When Harry gets there though he finds the writer murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. Harry must solve the murder so as to vindicate himself.I felt the book was well-written and I bulletted through the text. However, I found the story a little uneven: the police naming him as the #1 suspect was always shaky at best, and then there were a few other side-track stories going on which added tension yet seemed to detract from the over all effect of Harry being the #1 suspect. I did thoroughly enjoy the book and am eagerly waiting for the next installment in this series (which moves to Reno).

Couldn't put it down!

Murder Manual was my second Steven Womack book, the first was Chain of Fools. I started reading at 6:00 in the evening and didn't put it down until I finished it at midnight! Steven Womack's characters are so believable I felt like I couldn't stop reading until I found out what happened to them. The only other author that can make me read like that is Clive Cussler. Now I have two favorite authors!

Mr. Womack's written another great Denton detective novel.

I think this is Mr. Womack's best Harry James Denton work to date. The storyline and character development are believable, and he describes Nashville and the surrounding areas, such as Williamson County where I live, perfectly. Be sure to read the Denton series in order in which they were written to track the character developments, and also see the change in the political climate in the Metro Nashville area.