I just finished reading the Ashtabula Hat Trick, the new Milan Jacovich mystery novel by Les Roberts. The novels take place in Cleveland and environs. I have read all the books in the series, but they are definitely uneven in their quality and appeal. This one, I'm afraid to say, is a miss. It takes place in Ashtabula County, the most northeast county in Ohio, and seems to imply that everyone there is a racist, and that the place is beset by meth dealers and users. It might be true, it might not, but the book was pretty boring until the last 50 pages. Could Roberts be running out of fresh ideas? I shouldn't be the one to criticize, of course, since I ran out of fresh ideas something like 20 years ago, but on the whole, I would say this one is a skip.
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