Though this was a good read and I don’t regret having picked it up, ultimately there was just something…. lacking. The premise is obviously a gripping one – child disappears while on paper route and the parents’ attempts, with the help of PI Frank Behr, to find out what happened – but the way it unfolds is rushed and somewhat hackneyed.
The early scenes between the husband and wife post disappearance are well done, but later scenes with just the wife come across as afterthoughts or throwaways. As does, in fact, the presence of many of the secondary characters, especially Behr’s former boss at the police department.
It was as if Levien was following some formula that “required” there to be a petty, semi-competent, vindictive authority figure for his lead to bang heads with. The romantic aside was equally by-the-numbers and forced. If this is indeed to be a series, there will be more than enough time to delve into Behr’s romantic / social life.
Frank Behr definitely has promise as a series lead, but I believe the gushing comparisons reviewers have been making to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch and Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole are a bit premature. A better comparison in my opinion would be Lee Child’s Jack Reacher (complete with Behr’s 6’6″ size), though Behr has in no way proven himself (yet) to be as emotionally complex or intellectually sharp as Reacher.
The bottom line is that Behr simply did not have enough of a chance to shine in this book, with the secondary characters taking up more space than necessary, at the expense of Behr’s development. There has been a second book in the series published, but I can’t say I’ll be rushing out to get it.
Maybe this book just wasn’t my thing, but I found it to be an incredibly simplistic, thinly veiled rip-off of books like The 5 People You Meet In Heaven (which I wasn’t so fond of either). The book is basically a collection of scenes / stories that involve the mysterious character “Jones” – The Noticer – visiting people at different times in their lives when they are experiencing difficulties of one sort or another to help them “step into the light” and get on the right path.
At the book’s opening Houston cop Micky Ascherfeld survives a brutal shootout with two heavily armed robbers; her partner does not. 
I had read so many great reviews about this book when it was published that I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to the hype. The writing is decent, and the premise is very intriguing:
At any given moment, the human body contains millions of parasites. This is the story of just one. A really, really nasty one.
Those familiar with John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series are already acquainted with Louis & Angel; a hitman and burglar respectively, they usually serve as secondary characters to Parker’s lead. In The Reapers, Louis and Angel finally take center stage and the result is… mixed. 
If you’ve not previously read anything by Jeff Strand there couldn’t possibly be a better place for you to start than with his new release, Pressure. Though Strand is the author of over a dozen books, with the publication of Pressure Strand has taken his already incredible talent to another level entirely.
Flipping Out is the third book in a wonderful series by Marshall Karp featuring LAPD Homicide Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. If you haven’t read the first two yet, never fear. Karp’s style of writing is such that you can jump right in and hit the ground running… then go back and order books one and two, 
Nothing ever happens in Safe Haven, Wisconsin, a sleepy little town isolated from neighboring towns by thick woods and accessible by only a single road in and out. And that’s the way the 907 residents of Safe Haven like it… until that idyllic isolation turns into their worst nightmare.
