Point and Shoot
A Lock
Tourmaline Mystery
G. D.
Baum
BookSurge (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-4196-1981-0 (1419619810)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4196-1981-6 (9781419619816)
Publication Date: September 2006
List Price: $14.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Hired as a bodyguard to protect the daughter of a
Korean drug lord during a meeting with the drug lord’s arch
rival, New Jersey private investigator Lock Tourmaline finds himself
betrayed when the drug lord is assassinated. The hit may or may not
have been instigated by either the latter’s offspring, rival gang
members or corrupt officers of the Police Department.
One of those officers is dating Lock’s ex-wife. Lock struggles to
extricate her from a dangerous entanglement with both her corrupt lover
and an addiction to cocaine. In the midst of all this, the woman he now
loves is slowly succumbing to terminal cancer, and her fifteen-year-old
daughter is sinking more deeply into suicidal depression. Moreover,
everyone seems to want a piece of Lock, from Heung’s men, who are
stalking him, to the cops who seem poised to either help or betray him.
Review: G. D.
Baum's debut novel, Point and Shoot,
introduces ex-cop, private investigator, and martial arts expert Lothar
"Lock" Tourmaline in an action-packed, though somewhat aimless, mystery
of a high-level Korean mob meeting gone wrong.
In an attempt to solidify their power and political influence in
northern New Jersey, two powerful Korean mob families agree to meet to
discuss joining ranks. Neither side trusts the other, and insists that
bodyguards of their own choosing be present. Lock and his ex-cop
partner Henry Cho are hired to specifically protect Susan, daughter of
the patriarch of the Heung family, all of whom are meeting with their
primary rival, Cousin Bodacious. Midway through their discussions, Lock
and Cho are dispatched to deal with a police presence outside during
which time Susan's father is assasinated. Did the killers take
advantage of Lock's absense to strike, or were the police a clever
diversion intended to get Lock out of the way?
There are a lot of action sequences in Point and Shoot, all of which are
meticulously written and feature carefully choreographed martial arts
moves with details on the execution of the move and what is expected to
be accomplished as a result. And characters are defined more by their
martial arts abilities than anything else; the "Grandfather" character
is god-like and seems to have supernatural powers. But there isn't much
of a plot to link everything together. It's as if Baum made a list of
martial arts moves and characters that could perform them, and then
came up with a series of vignettes in which he could incorporate both.
There are several stories here of which only one could be termed a
mystery: who killed Mr. Heung. But while most of the various storylines
have some sort of resolution, including the "and, oh, by the way, it's
a book about a man who loves a woman who's dying of cancer", the
mystery does not. Who did kill Mr. Heung?
As a mystery, Point and Shoot
is a disappointment made more so since Baum could have easily written a
proper conclusion without being unreasonably ambiguous. As a martial
arts action, adventure fantasy, it works well: no plot required. As a
love story, the jury is still out.
Special thanks to Author Marketing Experts for providing a copy of Point and Shoot for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Point and Shoot? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Point and Shoot
BookSurge (Trade Paperback), September 2006
ISBN-10: 1-4196-1981-0 (1419619810)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4196-1981-6 (9781419619816)
Omnimystery keywords for Point and Shoot ...
Location(s) referenced: New Jersey.
