Picture drawn by Maggie Stiefvater, 2009. Header made by S.F. Robertson, 2010.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator by Josh Berk

Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator by Josh Berk
"Guy Langman can't be bothered with much. But when his friend Anoop wants Guy to join the forensics club with him in the (possibly misguided) hopes of impressing some girls, Guy thinks why not.

They certainly aren't expecting to find a real dead body on the simulated crime scene they're assigned to collect evidence from. But after some girlish, undignified screaming, the two realize it is indeed a body. Which means they have stumbled across a real, dead murder victim.

Meanwhile, Guy has been looking into the past of his father—a larger-than-life character who recently passed away. He was much older than Guy's mom, and had a whole past Guy never even knew about. Could his father's past and the dead body be linked? Does Guy want to know? He's going to need all his newfound forensics skills to find out . . ."- summary from Amazon

I liked Berk's debut and was excited to read this new book from him; I mean, the title alone is pretty awesome. But I gotta say, I wasn't as enthralled with this book as I was with his debut. It just felt really juvenile even though Guy is a junior in high school. It was just an odd combination and it threw me off a bit.

I did enjoy the whole murder mystery and all the forensics stuff, but I was let down by the ending. It was a twist and I didn't see it coming, but I think that's mainly because I was expecting something else based on the summary.

OK, let's end on some good things. While the humor was juvenile at times, it was still funny and I laughed out loud a few times. There was also some good depth to the characters, especially with Guy when he was learning about his father's past and dealing with his death. That really grounded the book for me.

Overall, a middle-of-the-road effort for me. I'd suggest it as a library book.

FTC: Received e-galley from Netgalley. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.

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