Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair

Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair opens with a hard-boiled, LA private eye (Malone) being hired by a stunningly beautiful, blond client (Evania) who claims to have witnessed a murder by two killers who, unfortunately for her, caught a glimpse of her. Fearing for her life, she’s come to Malone for help. After this familiar lead-in, the rest of the story plays out much as one might expect. Malone has to find a way of keeping Evania safe, bringing the drug-smuggling, human-trafficking villain to justice, and protecting his girlfriend, all without getting shot or at least not too badly.

A predictable plot like this can, of course, be carried along by clever dialogue and scintillating prose. Neither happens. Malone’s attempts at humor, and there are many, are moderately amusing but never enough to make the reader laugh out loud. And the writing is plagued by the author’s compulsion to describe actions, even everyday ones, in excruciating, step-by-step detail. On top of that, the frequency of typos, forgivable in small doses, is sizable enough to be annoying. This book requires a lot more work before it can be considered a good read.