{"id":14488,"date":"2020-09-10T21:50:53","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T21:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=14488"},"modified":"2020-09-10T21:50:53","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T21:50:53","slug":"lucky-break-by-mark-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=14488","title":{"rendered":"‘Lucky Break,’ by Mark Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I sometimes joke<\/strong> about the infinite number of fictional detectives today who live on a Florida beach, in emulation of John D. MacDonald\u2019s Travis McGee. And yet they never do seem to run out. My latest discovery is the Lucky John series by Mark Stone, of which the first installment is Lucky Break.<\/a><\/em> \u201cLucky John\u201d is actually (if improbably) named John Lucky. A former soldier and over the road truck driver, he rescued a girl in a truck stop from a robber one night. In gratitude, she made out a lottery ticket for him using her phone number. The number was drawn, and John Lucky suddenly had more money than he\u2019ll ever spend. (He did give the girl a piece of the prize.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having no real roots or family of his own, John decides to move to the place he liked best of all the places he\u2019s ever visited \u2013 Florida. He buys a house in Bonita Springs, with his amiable buddy Davey, who seems to have been born to be a sidekick. Before long they\u2019ve found a new favorite bar together, and shortly thereafter John defends the attractive bartender from her angry ex-husband. This leads to a complicated (and implausible) adventure in which John finds himself suspected of murder before uncovering and thwarting a diabolical revenge plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Believability isn\u2019t a big consideration in Lucky Break<\/em>. Details are contradictory, and extreme, movie-style dangers come at our hero rapid-fire. There is little time for meditation on life. The book is a fast read that probably didn\u2019t take long to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I kind of enjoyed it. Lucky John is a likeable hero, and the general mood is sunny, which is nice for a change. I bought the second book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sometimes joke about the infinite number of fictional detectives today who live on a Florida beach, in emulation of John D. MacDonald\u2019s Travis McGee. And yet they never do seem to run out. My latest discovery is the Lucky John series by Mark Stone, of which the first installment is Lucky Break. \u201cLucky John\u201d … Continue reading ‘Lucky Break,’ by Mark Stone<\/span> →<\/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":[3439,3438,1769],"class_list":["post-14488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-lucky-break","tag-lucky-john","tag-mark-stone"],"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\/14488","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=14488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14489,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14488\/revisions\/14489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}