Blue Butterfly: A Detective John Bowers Mystery

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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

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I like the snappy, witty dialogues and the off-the-grid characters who portray Portland so well. I especially enjoyed imagining myself in the scenes set in familiar locales and the real-time descriptive passages. Detective Bowers is a great character. He reminds me of the older mystery dicks who had some personality and lived real lives outside their police work. His new partner Minnie is a kick, too, and adds just the right amount of sexy spice to the story. I can see all these characters developing with time and blossoming in their personal relationships, so I'm assuming we are going to get a sequel, or two? Hope so. Because I want to follow along and see how they handle their personal adventures. As for the crime, I really liked having the victim's POV right from the get go and then following along as the cops track the scent to the killer. There's a nasty police bureau cover-up that is quite credible and the ending makes it all fit. The interviews with old hookers and a peek into the S&M scene was a kick too. Nothing phony or contrived about this mystery. A big round of applause for Ray Bates -- he hooked me from the first chapter, and the characters and gritty prose and brainy humor kept me turning the pages until the very end.

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A brand new look at Portland and the NW scene from a street-level view. This police procedural crime novel introduces us to a cast of characters torn right off the precinct roster -- they have real lives with frustrated romances, realistic setbacks and gritty bad guys trying to stay one jump ahead. Portland is portrayed as a main character almost and I found the prose especially riveting and right-on. For sex with a dose of romance, witty humor and cops who speak right off the page, this is the series to buy into. We're promised more of Det. Bowers and his cohorts, and I'm sure this series will win a wide audience of eager readers. I'm already waiting on the sequel! For good gritty dialog, victim POV that draws you in from the first page, brainy forensics and realism, you can't do much better -- 5 stars.