I received this book as a librarything giveaway. It was a quick read with a fast paced plot. The two detectives were realistic characters. The plot was also realistic. It was fun to read as I knew most of the locations mentioned. ( )

#3 Pratt & Ellis Toronto Ontario

Toronto homicide detectives Pratt and Ellis are brought in to investigate a series of hit-and-runs. Someone seems to be trying to kill random people using stolen cars.

Although I thought this was okay (3.5 stars means 'you'll probably enjoy this if this is your genre') at the time, I don't remember much about it now.

My apologies to the publishers for not rating this when the book was fresh in my mind. The rating was given at the time I read it. I received this through the Library Things Early Reviewers programme. ( )

I received this book through a librarything Early Reviewer giveaway. It is a great quick read and really enjoyable. The characters, as well as the plot, are believable and interesting. Perfect book for a plane trip or a lunchtime at work. ( )

I deeply appreciate the books I receive through the Early Reviewer facility on LibraryThing and try to give them each a fair review. In the case of Mr. Blechta's novella, I cannot honestly recommend this book unless someone has absolutely nothing else to read or otherwise occupy their time. As a way to spend a few hours, it would be more engaging to watch a snowman melt on your lawn while listening to the dialog of a classic Roadrunner cartoon from a TV in another room. For those who are not familiar with these cartoons, Wiley was mute and Roadrunner’s vocabulary was limited to “Beep-beep.”

The back cover suggests that the reading level of the book is for a 15 year old, but I think it would be more accurate to say that the book reflects the writing level of a 15 year old "C" student or someone for whom learning to write in English is a recent undertaking. His prose and descriptions contain grammar errors, which are easily detected by almost any automated grammar checker. He had made his first comma splice by the 3rd page. Having some grammar errors in characters' dialog is a common way to make the characters more realistic, since most people make more such mistakes in conversation than they do when writing. Mr. Blechta grammar errors were in his prose descriptions rather than dialog. I was an average student in English in high school (many centuries ago), but the mistakes in Mr. Blechta's prose were annoyingly obvious when reading the book casually.

I'm from the southern US and have never been to Toronto, but I've known others who have and described the city as exceptionally interesting. I enjoy reading stories with varied settings as an opportunity to learn about other places and the people who live there. Other than a reference to PATH near the end, which he didn't explain to the readers without a prior knowledge of Toronto, the generic descriptions could have been almost city where English was spoken.

Writing a good short story or novella can be harder than writing a full length novel. The difference is much like trying to prepare a flavorful and satisfying meal that is low-calorie. It takes extra work to produce a satisfying and interesting story or meal with half as many words or calories. Instead of being a complete and satisfying story, this attempt reads more like a story that was in progress and never finished. To stretch my food metaphor, this story is a glass of tap water and a plate of unwashed iceberg lettuce without any dressing or seasoning other than grit that should have been washed off. ( )

When two hit and run deaths happen in Toronto within weeks of each other the police believe there is a connection between them. Detective Pratt ends up with the case as he stayed behind to finish up a report. Soon Pratt's partner young Ellis is on the case and the men turn up more crimes they believe are the work of the same killer. Once they start to piece everything together, they realize there is another murder about to happen. Can they stop it in time?

The Pratt and Ellis mysteries are Rapid Reads; short and quick moving. What is especially good about them is that the background, the characters and the police procedures all have a Canadian flavour.