{"id":12806,"date":"2019-09-19T18:20:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T22:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12806"},"modified":"2019-09-19T18:20:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T22:20:55","slug":"bad-to-the-bones-by-james-harper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12806","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Bad to the Bones,&#8217; by James Harper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51upqzcMyZL.jpg?w=474&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I took a chance<\/strong> on the first novel in an unfamiliar detective series, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bad-Bones-Gripping-Thriller-Thrillers-ebook\/dp\/B076H9C28F\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3G6WPEDG8KO95&amp;keywords=bad+to+the+bones+james+harper&amp;qid=1568930628&amp;sprefix=bad+to+the+bones%2Caps%2C221&amp;sr=8-1&amp;tag=brandbooks-20\">Bad to the Bones<\/a><\/em>, Book 1 of James Harper\u2019s Evan Buckley series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It held some interest, but didn\u2019t work for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Private Eye Evan Buckley (I never really noticed where he\nlives) suffers a shock and vows to end his meat and potatoes work \u2013\ninvestigating unfaithful spouses for divorce cases. His original motivation for\nbecoming a PI was to find missing people, like his own wife who disappeared\nwithout explanation. A (surprisingly) friendly police detective refers him to a\nwoman whose son and husband both disappeared some years earlier. She believes\nthe police found an easy explanation and dropped the case without really\nsolving it. Evan vows to discover the truth for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which he does. But the journey to the explanation seemed\nweird to me. Character relationships struck me as unrealistic \u2013 people start by\nsnarling at each other, then suddenly become bosom buddies. The police don\u2019t\noperate like real police at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the final \u201cresolution\u201d was so horrific that I couldn\u2019t\nat all comprehend the sense of closure we\u2019re supposed to believe both Buckley\nand his client feel at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I don\u2019t really recommend <em>Bad to the Bones<\/em>. I saw potential in the author, so maybe the following books will be better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took a chance on the first novel in an unfamiliar detective series, Bad to the Bones, Book 1 of James Harper\u2019s Evan Buckley series. It held some interest, but didn\u2019t work for me. Private Eye Evan Buckley (I never really noticed where he lives) suffers a shock and vows to end his meat and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12806\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Bad to the Bones,&#8217; by James Harper<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[268,910,1390],"class_list":["post-12806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-bad-to-the-bones","tag-evan-buckley","tag-jams-harper"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}