{"id":1189,"date":"2013-10-31T21:30:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T03:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2013-10-31T21:30:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T03:30:40","slug":"tim-omara-crooked-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/tim-omara-crooked-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim O\u2019Mara: Crooked Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I loved O\u2019Mara\u2019s first book, Sacrifice Fly, <\/i>and I think I like this one even more.\u00a0 His main character is Brooklyn teacher (now dean) Raymond Donne, who used to be a cop but thanks to an injury sustained on the job is now a teacher.\u00a0 Ray gets involved with different crimes because (so far at least) they\u2019ve involved his students.<\/p>\n

\"crookednumbers\"<\/a>One of the strongest elements in this new series is not only the very Brooklyn specific setting, but the school setting.\u00a0 The parts O\u2019Mara the real life teacher adds to his novels about his fictional teacher Ray ring with authenticity and add real emotional texture to his stories.\u00a0 It\u2019s a weird comparison, but the way cozy writer Denise Swanson brings her school psychology experience to her books, adding detail and interest,\u00a0 O\u2019Mara is setting his books apart in the same way Swanson has.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Mara also embraces \u2013 as does Swanson \u2013 his chosen part of the genre, which turns out to be the private eye.\u00a0 While Ray is not technically a private eye, he certainly functions as one, and when the mother of a murdered former student of Ray\u2019s asks for his help he can\u2019t say no.\u00a0 Dougie\u2019s mom is sure that he couldn\u2019t have been involved in either gangs or drugs, and she wants Ray to help her prove it, as the police have taken everything they\u2019ve found at face value.<\/p>\n

Ray is in agreement \u2013 Dougie had been a particularly promising student that Ray had helped get admitted into a posh private school \u2013 and he agrees to call a reporter acquaintance and see if a story in the paper might prompt the police into more action.\u00a0 The cops aren\u2019t happy but the story does cause them to take another look, though Ray\u2019s uncle, a high up mucky muck in the police, comes by in his town car to chew Ray out and tell him to cut out his investigative \u201chelp\u201d.<\/p>\n

When two more students from Dougie\u2019s school suffer weird accidents (one fatal) Ray starts to think everything is connected.\u00a0 O\u2019Mara is a deft storyteller, intertwining several complex threads to tell his heartbreaking tale.\u00a0 While this story is certainly a dark and sad one, O\u2019Mara leavens it with the deepening relationship between Ray and the reporter and with the real humanity and goodness of Ray himself.<\/p>\n

In a sophomore effort, I always hope not just for a continuation of what made the first book special, but for a deepening and expansion of what\u2019s been started.\u00a0 O\u2019Mara delivers.\u00a0 Ray Donne is a wonderful character with a great setting, and O\u2019Mara\u2019s storytelling skills have only seemed to sharpen with this newest book.\u00a0 I look forward to many more in this wonderful series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I loved O\u2019Mara\u2019s first book, Sacrifice Fly, and I think I like this one even more.\u00a0 His main character is Brooklyn teacher (now dean) Raymond Donne, who used to be a cop but thanks to an injury sustained on the job is now a teacher.\u00a0 Ray gets involved with different crimes because (so far at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-p-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1191,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions\/1191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}