{"id":165,"date":"2015-06-03T22:36:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-04T03:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/?p=165"},"modified":"2015-06-03T22:36:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T03:36:22","slug":"the-vanishing-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/the-vanishing-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vanishing Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"vanishing<\/a>The Vanishing Smile<\/em><\/a>
\nEarl Emerson<\/a>
\nebook $3.99<\/p>\n

I was in the mood for a private eye novel a couple of weeks ago. I’d picked up an old paperback copy of The Vanishing Smile<\/em> somewhere during the last few months, so I thought I’d give it a try. I knew this wasn’t the first book in the series (The Rainy City<\/em>), as I had a copy of that one along with a few of Emerson’s other books. But sometimes series really don’t hit their stride until two or three volumes in, so I decided to give The Vanishing Smile<\/em> a try.<\/p>\n

I’m glad I did.\u00a0 This is not a stand-alone novel.\u00a0 There are plenty of references to events from prior books, but they don’t interfere with the current storyline.\u00a0 Emerson gives enough of the back story so that you’re not lost, but never enough to slow down the action.<\/p>\n

Seattle based detective Thomas Black is set up by his father.\u00a0 Expecting to meet his father at a restaurant, instead he finds his former lover, Kathy.\u00a0 The whole thing is a bit awkward because Black had killed her fiance some months before.\u00a0 It had been an accident, but that’s not something a lady can just shrug off.<\/p>\n

\"vanishing<\/a>They begin the process of making amends, by going to meet one of Kathy’s clients at a place up in the mountains.\u00a0 The client, Marion Wright, had been investigating some men who had done her and some of her girlfriends wrong.\u00a0 Only on the way up the mountain, a woman steps out in front of Kathy’s car.\u00a0 The woman turns out to be Marion Wright.<\/p>\n

Now Black is trying to figure out if Marion’s death is really an accident or an elaborate homicide.\u00a0 It’s going to be a wild ride, heart wrenching ride, especially if he can survive at bat wielding assailant.<\/p>\n

The Vanishing Smile<\/em> was a thoroughly enjoyable read.\u00a0 Thomas Black is a complex, sympathetic character who isn’t afraid to mix it up with the bad guys.\u00a0 And his relationship with Kathy is much more real than your typical PI romance.<\/p>\n

I’ll be picking up the rest of the books in this series, especially since they’re available in inexpensive ebook editions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vanishing Smile Earl Emerson ebook $3.99 I was in the mood for a private eye novel a couple of weeks ago. I’d picked up an old paperback copy of The Vanishing Smile somewhere during the last few months, so I thought I’d give it a try. I knew this wasn’t the first book in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":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_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[56,55],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebboks","category-private-investigators","tag-earl-emerson","tag-thomas-black"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P58L-2F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}