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I tend to read a lot when on the road. So I have now finished Queer Street, the latest Jake Rossiter and Miss Jenkins mystery novel written by Curt Colbert and published by Uglytown. As always, a little too much going on. Colbert needs to simplify these stories a bit. And I hate the ending.
In reading the ending, I feel like the boy in Princess Bride who has so much invested in the story that he yells at his grandfather that it can't be right. This ending can't be right. Even if Colbert is just setting up the 4th book in the series, it still pisses me off. Or perhaps he's taking to heart the admonition in professional wrestling, that there's more money to be made by letting the bad guy win and having the good guy chase him around than there is in the reverse situation. You keep tuning in hoping to finally see the bad guy get his. So I'll dutifully by the next book. But, and let this be a warning to Mr. Colbert, there's only so far I'll go watching this turn of events before it'll just irritate me too much and I'll stop buying the books. The good guy has to get some of his heat back sometime.
In the end, Jake Rossiter should be the one marrying Barbara Jenkins. The bacchanalia in which Miss Jenkins gets involved and the engagement to a bit character at the very end with almost no build-up, these are just wrong. I sensed it in the last few pages what Colbert was going to do. But it still pissed me off. Goddammit, don't fuck with my characters!