Smashwords — About Jim Fogarty, author of 'Down Jump Blues'

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Location: Canada
Member Since: July 24, 2012

Jim Fogarty

Books

Down Jump Blues by Jim Fogarty
Price: Free! 4130 words. Published on October 25, 2012. Fiction.

(4.75 from 4 reviews)
Sully O'Quinn and the team from DL Security find themselves in a race to find a killer and recover a stolen fortune. It started as a simple protection job to escort a shipping executive to a clandestine meeting. But Sully and his team are set up to take the fall for a daring heist and murder committed in the middle of hyperspace. Was the killer still on board, or has one of his team double cross

Jim Fogarty’s tag cloud

space opera adventure crime pirates mystery

Smashwords book reviews by Jim Fogarty

Newfoundland on July 30, 2012

In the interests of full disclosure I only read approximately 25% of this novel before stopping. Newfoundland is a novel I wanted to love. I love stories of planetary colonization. It is clear to me that this author wanted to write an entertaining book on this topic, but unfortunately it falls short on several fronts. This is most obvious in the dialog. The characters speak in a very stilted and unnatural manner. And on many occasions the conversation exists solely to provide the reader with background information. The characters, who are journalists, military officers, politicians, and investigators do not act in a way that I would expect people of their profession to behave. Plot wise the book plodded along and it was too far into the story before the complication point. A nefarious secret is promised, but unless there is a second deeper darker secret revealed later in the book, I was left scratching my head as to why the secret caused the turmoil it did. It just made no sense to me. I think there are the bones of a good story here but this book, or at least the first quarter, needs a rewrite. I think a journalist uncovering a secret plot by a corrupt military-industrial complex is intriguing. Dialog should be crisp, brief and drive the plot forward. So should the action, we don't need to know all the details of ship board meals and such. The characters need to act in a recognizable, logical manner. And if there is a deep dark secret, it should be more than what is presented here.
Trouble Brewing on July 30, 2012

I love superhero stories be they text, movie, or graphic novel. Trouble Brewing has a super-powered character with an interesting superpower that makes the title a clever pun. But superpowers aside, this really is a caper story. From a technical perspective the writing is good with proper sentence construction and very few typos. This is a polished story, but the problem is with the plot. A caper story requires a tight plot filled with complications. At the midpoint there is a heist that goes far too easily. A second caper at the end of the story doesn't go as smoothly but why it did was unsatisfying. The main character, the one with the superpower, is not very interesting. He's kind of a sad sack who follows the lead of the secondary characters. Although they are more interesting, I was more than a little perplexed by their motivations to get involved in this caper. I didn't buy the explanation given. I found the story resolution a little too pat and unrewarding. There is some good stuff in this book, and it was a quick read. Some parts did entertain me, but if there was tighter plot and slightly different characters I would have enjoyed this much more.
Mug Shot on Aug. 02, 2012

I just read this last night, This book is very well written in a technical sense. It is clear and the action is easy to follow. There are a few issues with dialogue. The characters repeat each other,s names too often or the writer attributes who is speaking a little too often. We don't need to be reminded who is speaking that much. The plot and main villain are interesting and clever. An ad exec as evil genius. Talk about Mad Men. (Well in this case a woman.) There were some drawbacks. The plot took a little too long to get moving. Too much time is spent establishing the main character as an unemployed heartbroken loser and then setting up the school and the characters there before the action starts. This book could benefit from quicker pacing. Also the setup as to why there are no real superheros at the school for superheros is kind of weak. I recently read "Trouble Brewing" also by this author and had similar thoughts about that book. On a whole I would say Mr. Winslow's writing is very good, but he needs a little more polishing and tighter plots. There is a lot of quality in his work and I would not be surprised to see him charging for his next book. I would probably buy it too. This was free and it is better than some books I paid for.
Hull Damage on Aug. 02, 2012

In the interests of full disclosure I only read about the first five chapters before I had enough. I love space opera and adventure stories and I was hoping to enjoy this, but sadly I could not. There seems to be a more than concentrated effort on the part of the author to write a hip book about hip characters but this this comes off as too hip by half. The characters were too busy being cool for me to make any kind of attachment to them. I am not a prude or put off be violence but the killing and mayhem in this book is too commonplace and casual. One character gets shot each and every time she goes to a certain bar. And guess what, on her 10th visit she gets shot a 10th time. I just didn't care enough about the characters to care if they got shot and I never got the feeling there was any real jeopardy anyway. This book is chocked full of pirates and bounty hunters and other assorted rouges and scoundrels engaged in piracy and other assorted nefarious activities but I would have enjoyed it much more if it were dialed back a bit, as it is, it comes across as kind of shallow. On the plus side did like some of the description and a bit of the dialogue now and then, there is some substance to the writing but is seems too much effort was put on the style. (The story is also written in the present tense, which I personally dislike, so that may have coloured my thoughts on this book.) The writer is obviously talented and I would be interested in checking out his other work, but this story, or at least the way is is told, did not appeal to me.
The Intervention on Aug. 07, 2012

I found this to be an interesting and well written story. The author can convey a real feel for the military and that is no surprise if you read his bio. I was very satisfied with this. I know we are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I almost did. If the author is reads this I would humbly suggest a cover change. This looks like a child's effort and does not reflect the maturity in the story.
Crap Shoot on Aug. 09, 2012

I was expecting a whimsical, erotic story and I was left kind of disappointed. There was too much summery and repetition and and not enough action, there was no real conflict, the erotic parts were not that erotic and it was kind of preachy.
Ignorance of the Law on Aug. 20, 2012

This was really very predictable and I didn't find it very funny.