MARY LAMPHERE AUTHOR

After last week’s dismal 3 Books, 3 Sentences Review, I needed to read something light and entertaining to get the bad book taste out of my head.

I’m happy to report my literary palate cleanser was a success!

Kudos and 5 Stars to The Dispatcher by John Scalzi. I stumbled across this title by accident and was intrigued by the premise. I also welcomed the under 100 page readability. Quick, clever, and well written, if you’re a fan of sci-fi detective stories, give this series a try. I’m currently reading book 2 of 3, The Dispatcher: Murder by Other Means, another short story at 105 pages.

Amazon blurb:
One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone—999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don’t know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.

Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher—a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those whose circumstances put them in death’s crosshairs, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. But when a fellow Dispatcher and former friend is apparently kidnapped, Tony learns that there are some things that are worse than death, and that some people are ready to do almost anything to avenge what they see as a wrong.

It’s a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it’s too late…before not even a Dispatcher can save him.

So far, this series is a winning example of an author successfully writing a story around a crazy premise. A genuine rarity in the novel world. So many times, an author has a fabulously unique idea but doesn’t know where to go with it. (Trust me, I know!) I’ll be taking notes from Mr. Scalzi.

Perhaps once I have completed the series I will repeat my 3 Books, 3 Sentences Review with an updated and more satisfying post.