Sat 14 Dec 2013
Reviewed by Allen J. Hubin: LES ROBERTS – Full Cleveland.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
Allen J. Hubin
LES ROBERTS – Full Cleveland. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1989; paperback, 1990.
Full Cleveland, the second of Les Roberts’ novels about private investigator Milan Jacovich, doesn’t have the high appeal for me that the first (Pepper Pike) did, but it’s agreeable enough.
Jacovich, a former cop like most PI’s, operates in Cleveland and mourns his lost family (his wife divorced him, and his sons, particularly the older, are drifting away). He consoles himself with no-commitment sex and here accepts what seems a simple and tranquil assignment: track down a downscale swindler who ripped off a bunch of would-be advertisers in his won’t-be magazine.
But complications soon arise. Milan’s client, a lakeside hotel, invested an incredible amount for an ad, and said hotel proves to have mob connections whom Milan has unhappily met before. Said connections provide Jacovich with a most unwelcome assistant. And why should businesses so little in need of publicity have invested in advertising space?
Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 1990.
The Milan Jacovich series —
1. Pepper Pike (1988)
2. Full Cleveland (1989)
3. Deep Shaker (1991)
4. The Cleveland Connection (1993)
5. The Lake Effect (1994)
6. The Duke Of Cleveland (1995)
7. Collision Bend (1996)
8. The Cleveland Local (1997)
9. A Shoot In Cleveland (1998)
10. The Best Kept Secret (1999)
11. The Indian Sign (2000)
12. The Dutch (2001)
13. The Irish Sports Pages (2002)
14. King of the Holly Hop (2008)
15. The Cleveland Creep (2011)
16. Whiskey Island (2012)
17. Win, Place, or Die (2013) (with Dan S Kennedy)
Note: Between 1987 and 1994, Les Roberts also wrote six mysteries featuring an LA-based PI named Saxon. More recently he has has published two standalone crime novels and one collection of short fiction, The Scent of Spiced Oranges (2002).
December 14th, 2013 at 6:01 pm
The good news is that this is NOT a series I haven’t dipped my toe into before, and several times at that. Al Hubin’s review of this one about nails it for me: not a series of overly high appeal, but nonetheless one I’ve always found agreeable.
The bad news is that I seem to have lost contact with the series about halfway down the list. Most of the titles in the lower half are totally unfamiliar to me.
December 14th, 2013 at 6:35 pm
Steve
Same boat. I remember these as entertaining enough, but started losing track and never caught up again. I think there was such a surfeit of private eyes then I had to carve it down to just the ones I especially liked.
It reached a point in the ’80’s when it seemed every other book was a hardboiled eye with a twist, and I’m sure I missed more than a few good ones in self defense. I had quite a few favorites who took precedent.
December 14th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
I remember reading this and one or two others in the series. I enjoyed them, but Jacovich spent a little too much time feeling sorry for himself, as I recall. It might be worth it to check out another one, though.
December 15th, 2013 at 8:33 am
Steve’s second paragraph is the exact thing I was going to write. I liked the books but somehow quit about halfway through. I knew there were others but wasn’t aware the series was still going on. I’m going to try the next one and see how it goes.