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The Sixth Idea

A Monkeywrench Mystery by P. J. Tracy

The Sixth Idea by P. J. Tracy

Review: When members of an online discussion group, all descendants of the scientists who developed the first atomic bomb in the US, are killed off, one by one, the Monkeewrench crew is enlisted to help identify the culprits … and to determine if any remaining members may be at risk … in The Sixth Idea, the seventh mystery in this series by P. J. Tracy.

At first the detectives investigating one of the murders, Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, believe it is just a coincidence when their victim is tied to another, murdered the same night, via a website. But then a third and fourth murder, one tied to the website, the other apparently the killer, though why he was taken out is unclear. Are there two competing groups here? The fact that the website has disappeared complicates matters, and with it being the only common denominator to this series of murders, the detectives turn to Monkeewrench, an eccentric group of computer experts, to both recover it and discover who took it down.

The action moves along briskly in The Sixth Idea, so much so that it's easy to overlook how thin the storyline is and how unevenly it unfolds. The characters are well-developed, and presented in such a way that new readers will get to know them quickly while readers familiar with the series won't be skimming through the introductions. Each of the cast has a well-defined role, and each plays it in a straight-forward, credible manner. But it's the plot that is the problem here. The hows and whys and why-now elements are both presented and resolved within a single chapter towards the end. And the detectives, who play such important and central parts in the story, have nothing to do with its resolution. For that matter, Monkeywrench's role is minimal, though crucial. All in all, a little disappointing, especially since the book's premise seems so promising.

Acknowledgment: Penguin Group provided a copy of The Sixth Idea for this review.

Review Copyright © 2016 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved

Location(s) referenced in The Sixth Idea: Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

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The Sixth Idea by P. J. Tracy

The Sixth Idea by A Monkeywrench Mystery

Publisher: Putnam
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-399-16935-9
Publication Date:
List Price: $27.00

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Page Author: Lance Wright
Site Publisher: Mysterious Reviews

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