I finally finished this book. I can’t have enjoyed Scott W. Cook’s Choices a whole lot, because I sure found it easy to put it down. But on the other hand, I kept with it to the end, which must mean something.

Apparently, Scott Jarvis is an established Florida private eye character (there are a lot of those; John D. MacDonald left a great big void in his wake), and Choices is the first book Cook wrote about the character. But it wasn’t published until now (I can see the reasons). Nevertheless, he’s worked it over now and released it as a prequel.

It… still needs work.

Scott Jarvis is a police detective in Orlando, Florida. He has high ideals about making the world a better place (the author goes on an on about this), and is frustrated by the legal limitations the job places on him. Finally, after he’s badly wounded and a vicious gangster gets released, he accepts friends’ advice and goes into business as a private investigator. In time, this gives him the opportunity to go after that same gangster in a big way, from a different angle.

The plot of Choices is pretty far-fetched, in my opinion. Jarvis gets away with a lot of stuff that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t go in the real world (including taking a couple of the classic Hollywood shoulder wounds without being permanently disabled). He carries a “silenced” Colt 1911 .45, which will make gun guys laugh. The text includes a number of textual errors such as mistaken homophones and missing section breaks. And sometimes the author forgets he’s writing in first person and slides into third.

But the biggest problem is a simple beginner’s problem, one most authors make and get over. Cook overwrites. He tells us things multiple times. He explains what he means too much. He likes to say someone “quipped” this or that, when it’s not really a quip, and you shouldn’t have to explain that to the audience anyway. If you want the audience to know it’s a joke, make it a better joke – don’t explain to them how they ought to be amused.

Still, I thought there were signs of good writing here. I might read the next book, to see if the author has learned anything.