Dead On by Ann Kelly Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dead On
Book Review: What garbage!!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
This book was awful. I had to read it for book club, otherwise I never would have got passed the first 5 pages. I'd give it less than one if I could. How can anybody like this? It was so poorly written -- painfully cliche characters engaging in painfully cliche dialogue. It made me cringe, the prose was so embarrassingly bad it made my toes curl.
Maybe the story had some potential but the execution was so convoluted that it just ended up a jumble of half-baked ideas.
And all the references to Doylestown -- so forced. She had to get every landmark, restaurant, coffee shop in there -- it was like reading a "Things to Do in Doylestown" publication. Felt like a selling tool -- i.e., "Let's get all these places referenced in here so all these Doylestownians will want to run out and buy the book so they can feel all warm and fuzzy that they go to all these places.
The sex scenes were so gratuitous -- again, felt more like a selling tool than a really necessary part of the story. Wierd -- felt like some bad amateur porn thing sent into the Howard Stern show. And it's not out of prudishness I say this -- I like a good sex scene like the next person but these, ugh...embarrassingly bad.
And finally, the ending -- eeekk! It was like Kelly thought "Let's pick who I think everyone will think is the last person suspected of being the perp" when in reality... everybody already is suspecting that person because they seemingly are the last person likely to be the perp. Basically it rung like "the butler did it," and it was a forced reach to boot.
I guess it may have the potential of making a good movie if the powers that be can get a damn good screenwriter to pluck out some of the more promising story threads and give them a complete makeover (Kind of the literary version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy).
For me, this novel started with a trickle and ended with a plop.
Book Review: CSI Meets The X-Files
Summary: 4 Stars
Ann Yang is the new Bucks County ME in Doylestown, PA, trying to catch a psychopathic serial killer in the Philadelphia suburb. She desperately needs to delete the disturbing memory of a failed marriage and find her new place in life. The psychopath may not be the only one who's nuts in the book, and the intimate relationship Ann wants to uncover may not be far from home. The case sends her to a place we all love, pre-Katrina New Orleans, but even that trip brings more questions than answers to her and her retired FBI associate. The leading clue left by the killer is the button from a Civil War uniform, and Mulder and Scully are not around to help her with the past-life regressions and time travels that cloud her mind and the case. The excessive use of italics representing text from a diary and thoughts held by the perpetrators makes the reading more difficult than necessary. Some of the descriptions of characters and events are so brief that they appear to be extraneous to the plot, confusing the reader just a bit. A few of the chapters are less than a half page in length: a little more detailed explanation of the characters and their actions would not hurt the pace of the story. The one-star review posted on this site is overly harsh. Dead On is a cake-walk to three stars, and the fourth provides the benefit of the doubt. This is a fine first effort by an upcoming new author.Book Review: DEAD ON IS DEAD ON
Summary: 4 Stars
Dead On is Dead On
First and foremost I've got to get this out of my system, "Wow!" I've got some other choice interjections but this is a rated G review and my expletives will be censored into some symbols, "@#$%%^@!" Dead On by Ann Kelly published by iUniverse 2004 at $24.95 is 196 pages of pure guilt-ridden instant gratification. I could have read Dead On in one sitting, in fact that would have been my preference, but much resented life interfered with my reading and I had to put the book aside for a day. Everyone around me, friends and family not excluded had to listen to my grumblings about the rude "readerious interruptus".
Dead On is a mystery in a mystery within a mystery. Ann Yang, a medical examiner finds herself stuck in all three. Yang's investigation of a murder scene in Doylestown Pennsylvania reveals what she suspects to be the act of a serial killer. A ruthless murderer that uses Civil War coat buttons placed beneath the victim's tongue as a calling card. "Union infantry. Genuine article." At the same time, Yang finds during the renovations of her house an old diary that belonged to a former occupant and maybe the key to a hundred year old mystery. Newly divorced and gun shy of relationships, Yang begins to have feelings for Mark, the carpenter that is working on her house, but will not give in to them because of the "trauma" involved with being a medical examiner. She attempts to alleviate these deterrents by attending therapy sessions of hypnosis and past-life regressions. Soon, Yang is convinced that the killer, the diary and her past are somehow connected.
Dead On is a quick read, but packed like a novel twice its size. Kelly's chapters are short but hit with a large wallop. While some authors fawn and preen their vocabulary and stamina as a wordsmith by writing forty page chapters made of lengthy passages of purple prose describing each tiny filament on the leg hairs of a tsetse fly. Ann Kelly's writing is sparse and at the same time lyrical. She keeps the reader riveted, their mind's racing; continually second guessing themselves in a delicious tension that is almost palpable enough to eat with the mouth as well as their devouring eyes. Her descriptions just about burn the page with action interrelated with ideas; especially the entries of a journal that her protagonist Ann Yang has discovered:
April 14, 1902
I don't bother her in school. It's not that I'm ashamed of myself. It's just not the thing to do. I have no desire to step into the shallow pool; I've grown accustomed to the reckless, deep walls of my own poisoned well.
What a glorious Saturday. I found myself on the trolley today, heading to Willow Grove Park. I was surprised when she sat down next to me, alone, not saying a word. Eventually we reached Philadelphia. I enjoyed her nearness; I was excited by the proud way people stared at her. Soon we were north of Philadelphia in a crowd of well-dressed ladies and men departing the trolleys, descending the stairs, and walking through the tunnels that had been dug under Easton Road. There's an inscription above the door to one of the two tunnels:
For myriad souls this is the shrine-The temple of the art divine.
Ann Yang is like Kathy Reichs' heroine Forensic Anthropologist Temperance Brennan and James Patterson's Abnormal Psychologist and Forensic Psychologist hero Alex Cross (Kelly even makes a playful salute to Patterson by having Yang describe her retired FBI profiler friend Tony Cole as resembling the actor Morgan Freeman. Freeman played Alex Cross in the movie adaptations of Patterson's novels Kiss the Girls and Along Comes a Spider.) Some differences between Yang and Brennan are not subtle. Brennan does not carry a Glock strapped to her ankle and she is not Chinese. The subtleties are more interesting: Yang is more fallible than Brennan, but she understands her needs and appetites better than Brennan. Like an ascetic, Yang denies herself any pleasure almost as if she is punishing herself for her poor decisions in the past. Unlike an ascetic she eventually gives into her needs and passion, which makes her likeable and thus the reader can emphasize and identify with Yang's emotions more than Brennan's intellect. Yang and Alex Cross have similar traits possessing an animalistic tenacity, a primal determination to not only solve the case, but also to bring a permanent closure. Yang doesn't have Cross's pretentiousness and her vulnerability lends humanity to an inhumane situation and that creates hope.
-Lee Gooden 8-15-06
Book Review: "DEAD ON" is A Must Read!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Dead On", is an unsullied novel by a new, fresh and spirited, upcoming author who is not afraid to color outside the lines. She articulates so much with so few words, but rolls a story off so effectively, the reader cannot put the book down?
Alida66, what could you be thinking? After a review of a book on sewing ("Oh there's a professional critique"?) Did, perhaps the book insult you in some way? I suggest you stick to sewing critiques...and I'm terribly sorry you missed the entire premise of "DEAD ON"
"Dead On" is not only physically powerful but effectively accomplished & to the point. You cannot stop reading. 196 pages is "not" a large book, (I read it in two days) and the chapters are certainly far from long, but electrifying.
You find yourself emotionally charged, trying to figure out the plot...which adds to the expertise of the writer's ability to pull the reader into a memorizing & poetic playground of the demented killer.
The author's intellectual awareness & integration of personality theories, pulse an emotional & spiritual read, to say the least!
I could identify with the main character and her gained strengths from the vulnerability of her present life's misfortune...I was intrigued by the meat of the story, which takes place a lifetime before, and the ending, hit me like a big fat wallop, never saw it coming! BRAVO!!!
The author's attention to detail froze my eyes to the pages, and found myself silently shaking my head (boy, did she do her homework) this was indeed a powerfully convincing story...for those of you who enjoy murder mysteries, with a touch of the paranormal...this is an engrossing journey that would make any Hollywood producer the hit of tinsel town...if they were able to reproduce the anticipation, the thrill and the surprises that lurk the pages along the way, leaving nothing out.
So, when's the author's next book coming out!
Book Review: Dead on is Dead On Target
Summary: 5 Stars
Dead On by Ann Kelly is a stunning first novel that blends ghostly happenings, romance, eroticism, time travel and intrigue into a genuine page-turner. The Ann Yang character (Bucks County, PA medical examiner) is particularly well-drawn, and the story builds nicely to a satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend it.