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Title: Dead Skip
Series: The DKA Files #1
Author: Joe Gores
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 167
Words: 55K
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. This series (DKA stands for Dan Kearney Associates) is about a business that tracks down and repossesses cars that have been stolen or not paid up on.
Unfortunately, Joe Gores, the author, seems intent on dwelling on the seamy side of such a business and everyone under questioning is some sort of filthy wretch. Every woman’s bosom comes under scrutiny from at least one of the men in the agency and apparently all anyone can think about, man or woman, is how they’re going to get laid next.
Add in the racism (EVERYBODY in this story is a racist, from the black woman to the mexican car owner to the white policeman) and the language used and I was done by the time the story was done. I realize there is a point where you are describing “events on the ground”, but it is beyond unnecessary to write out a whole paragraph using every racial slur I’ve heard to date (given, that’s not that many, but it’s enough). All I could think of was “why was this included?”
The story itself was intriguing. DKA is chasing down a missing car and in the process uncover an embezzling scheme and murder. It was great. But Gores just couldn’t help but dirty things up. As such, I won’t be tracking down any more stories by him.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
In the first book of Joe Gores’s razor-sharp Daniel Kearny Associates series, a DKA investigator clings to life after a devastating car crash. The police are ready to write it off as a drunk driving incident, but the DKA team knows it was an attempted homicide. Now they have seventy-two hours to search the backstreets of San Francisco and find the truth about the “accident” from a stripper, an embezzler, an ex-con, and other unsavory characters
