Dale Robert’s crime mystery novel, Irrefutable, is like that car you know you should buy. It’s well built, has a good consumer rating, drives well, and gets good mileage. However, the minute you get behind the wheel you get a sense something is missing, but for the price you might as well give it a spin anyway.
Irrefutable centers around Florida Detective Alex Mendez: a decorated cop, father, and widower. He struggles with coming to terms with his wife’s death while raising his sixteen-year-old daughter alone. He’s also trying to catch a serial rapist. Someone is abducting women, drugging and raping them. They all wake up naked near a local marina with few memories of the ordeal. Detective Mendez quickly finds common threads connecting the crimes, but can’t follow them to a suspect. Alex must stop the rapist, but the rapist is also trying to stop Alex. Oh yes, he also talks to his dead wife Allyson, although I can’t figure out if she’s a ghost or a figment of his imagination.
A myriad of borderline cliché characters surround Alex, including Rachael, the beautiful district attorney. She helped Alex deal with his wife’s death and is the love interest. There is also Kathy, the rookie detective eager to make a name as Alex’s partner, even if it comes at Alex’s expense. The characters are well written and could have been one of the book’s strongest points. However, we’ve seen them all before, in one form or another, in other crime stories. I kept waiting for them to develop, but like the plot, they never grew beyond the predictable. And this is really the crux of the problem for Irrefutable.
Roberts keeps the plot moving by effectively building tension, making the ride interesting for the reader... mostly. Like the characters, the plot was very formulaic. The somewhat original twist, Alex talking to his dead wife, is suddenly abandoned mid-book and then reintroduced at the end as sort of an afterthought. In doing so, Roberts loses an opportunity to make the book truly stand out. As for the “who done it” aspect, it’s not hard to figure out by mid-book, though Roberts treats it like a bombshell at the end.
For such a professionally written novel, Irrefutable suffered from a surprisingly strong case of the Indie Writers Curse - mechanical and grammar errors. IWC afflicted this novel throughout, but wasn’t enough to detract from the enjoyment of the book.
This novel is suitable for ages eighteen and up, for sexual content, violence and suggestive themes.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. Roberts is obviously a talented writer. My main critique is it could have been so much more. Irrefutable is soundly written, but flat. The cookie-cutter plot and near-cliché’ characters give this book a predictable and mechanical feel, as if it were manufactured, not created. However, with all this said, I still recommend Irrefutable for crime mystery lovers. It kept me involved, even if I kept waiting for it to break out into the original. While I knew this book could have been so much more, it was still adequate (especially for the Kindle price). All-in-all, Irrefutable falls short of great, but settles for practical. If crime mystery is your thing, take Irrefutable for a spin. It earns 79 out of 99 cents.
(Author’s Note: When I started reviewing Irrefutable, the Kindle price was 99 cents, now it lists for $1.99).
99 Cents worth of Dale Roberts links:
Buy it on Amazon
If you enjoyed this review, please support the Underground by nominating us as one of the top ten writer's blogs this year at WritetoDone!
You can also follow Brian on Facebook and Twitter
Irrefutable centers around Florida Detective Alex Mendez: a decorated cop, father, and widower. He struggles with coming to terms with his wife’s death while raising his sixteen-year-old daughter alone. He’s also trying to catch a serial rapist. Someone is abducting women, drugging and raping them. They all wake up naked near a local marina with few memories of the ordeal. Detective Mendez quickly finds common threads connecting the crimes, but can’t follow them to a suspect. Alex must stop the rapist, but the rapist is also trying to stop Alex. Oh yes, he also talks to his dead wife Allyson, although I can’t figure out if she’s a ghost or a figment of his imagination.
A myriad of borderline cliché characters surround Alex, including Rachael, the beautiful district attorney. She helped Alex deal with his wife’s death and is the love interest. There is also Kathy, the rookie detective eager to make a name as Alex’s partner, even if it comes at Alex’s expense. The characters are well written and could have been one of the book’s strongest points. However, we’ve seen them all before, in one form or another, in other crime stories. I kept waiting for them to develop, but like the plot, they never grew beyond the predictable. And this is really the crux of the problem for Irrefutable.
Roberts keeps the plot moving by effectively building tension, making the ride interesting for the reader... mostly. Like the characters, the plot was very formulaic. The somewhat original twist, Alex talking to his dead wife, is suddenly abandoned mid-book and then reintroduced at the end as sort of an afterthought. In doing so, Roberts loses an opportunity to make the book truly stand out. As for the “who done it” aspect, it’s not hard to figure out by mid-book, though Roberts treats it like a bombshell at the end.
For such a professionally written novel, Irrefutable suffered from a surprisingly strong case of the Indie Writers Curse - mechanical and grammar errors. IWC afflicted this novel throughout, but wasn’t enough to detract from the enjoyment of the book.
This novel is suitable for ages eighteen and up, for sexual content, violence and suggestive themes.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. Roberts is obviously a talented writer. My main critique is it could have been so much more. Irrefutable is soundly written, but flat. The cookie-cutter plot and near-cliché’ characters give this book a predictable and mechanical feel, as if it were manufactured, not created. However, with all this said, I still recommend Irrefutable for crime mystery lovers. It kept me involved, even if I kept waiting for it to break out into the original. While I knew this book could have been so much more, it was still adequate (especially for the Kindle price). All-in-all, Irrefutable falls short of great, but settles for practical. If crime mystery is your thing, take Irrefutable for a spin. It earns 79 out of 99 cents.
(Author’s Note: When I started reviewing Irrefutable, the Kindle price was 99 cents, now it lists for $1.99).
99 Cents worth of Dale Roberts links:
Buy it on Amazon
If you enjoyed this review, please support the Underground by nominating us as one of the top ten writer's blogs this year at WritetoDone!
You can also follow Brian on Facebook and Twitter
