"Court Trouble" is a play on words, court being a tennis court where the murder of Manny Grimes occurs.
Grimes is bludgeoned to death on one of the tennis courts at the North Boulder Recreation Center. Right from the get go, how can someone, just one person beat someone to death with a tennis racket?
Novelist Mike Befeler tries to justified this in a non comedic way and this book fails miserably.
The only good thing about this book was that is was free to read, thanks to the coddingtown library. Released to the general public on July 20, "Court Trouble" was troublesome to read to say the least.
The books like the previous one I reviewed lacked any interest for the reader, and for a murder mystery, it was more of a mystery as to why such a boring story was being written. A brain damaged monkey on acid with a rubbery twig in the wet sand could have written a more interesting story.
The main character Mark Yeager was good friends with the murdered Grimes, and even though he's just and entrepreneur with absolutely no police or detective experience, he sets out to question witnesses and search houses, which the cops don't object too, a major red flag for a story that is a drama and not a comedy.
Yeager almost gets himself and his wife killed with his snooping around and dangerous questions to the nefarious folks. Even when Yeager is tied at the hands and feet with duck tape and thrown into an ice covered lake, I knew he'd live and solve the mystery, another red flag, extreme predictability.
There are four main suspects, and four very boring characters who spark as much interest as a documentary about toilet tissue holders.
"Court Trouble" contained all the main ingredients for an adult thriller, illegal gambling, gun trafficking, adultery, murder and mystery, but the formula was nothing more than a messy mix of miserable character development and lackluster story telling. Zero stars for this book, it was simply a pathetic parade of nonsense and boredom.
