Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:    Drama Queen: A Nicky and Noah Mystery

AUTHOR:     Joe Cosentino

PUBLISHER: Lethe Press

LENGTH:     176 Pages

BLURB:

It could be curtains for college theatre professor Nicky Abbondanza. With dead bodies popping up all over campus, Nicky must use his drama skills to figure out who is playing the role of murderer before it is lights out for Nicky and his colleagues. Complicating matters is Nicky’s huge crush on Noah Oliver, a gorgeous assistant professor in his department, who may or may not be involved with a cocky graduate assistant…and is also the top suspect for the murders! You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, side-splittingly funny, edge-of-your-seat, delightfully entertaining novel. Curtain up!

REVIEW:

The title “Drama Queen: A Nicky and Noah Mystery” sounds like it might be the beginning of a series with these two main characters. I don’t know that to be a fact, and we will have to wait and see.

Nicky Abbondanza is a college theatre professor at a prestigious private college in Vermont, the only problem is his coworkers are dropping like flies. With murders piling up, and the staff decreasing at an alarming rate, someone has to figure out whodunit. Somehow, Nick, and his coworker crush Noah Oliver, end up being the ones to do the on campus investigation. While the cops stumble along, not coming up with any leads, the team of Nicky and Noah interview the survivors looking for clues as to the killer’s identity. I’ll be honest, I didn’t figure out who the killer was until it said it in the book. Usually I have a clue, but not this time.

OK, so now the downside for me. Overall the book was well enough written, as I expected from this author, being a college professor himself. But I’ve got to keep it real and say I didn’t like this one anywhere near as much as the first book by this author that I reviewed awhile back.

Let’s start with the blurb. The last line of the blurb is wildly inaccurate in my opinion. I didn’t applaud, the story was anything but fast paced (I would have to say that it plodded along), I never laughed once and truthfully I was so happy to find out whodunit, because it meant the end was coming.

It isn’t that I don’t have a sense of humor, but I think the parts that were supposed to be funny were the sections that read something like, “we had a wild lovemaking session and afterwards there were stains on the curtains (don’t ask).” I think the (don’t ask) was the funny part? It fell flat for me. And I truly didn’t like the constant references to Nicky swallowing a handful of vitamins at every opportunity. He ate so many vitamins I started to worry he would have a stomach ulcer by the end of the book. I understand with the ending why the vitamins were important, but it didn’t work in the storyline that well.

Overall, I would have to say this book was at best Good/Average. If it comes down to a choice, I would personally recommend you read the author’s “An Infatuation” instead. I’m 100% sure if this does become a series that I won’t be interested enough to go on to the second book. Sorry folks, but just keeping it real. Unfortunately this one, while not bad, wasn’t as entertaining as I expected. As always, it is just my opinion, some of you may have totally different experiences with the book.

RATING:

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