I read Monkeewrench #1 about a month ago. I enjoyed this, Live Bait, #2 just as much. The four Monkeewrench partners play minor roles in this book, with Grace getting more time than the others. The book mostly features the main detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth along with secondary detectives McLaren and Langer.There are, of course, homicides to solve involving elderly folks. The investigations were slow and almost used just as a backdrop for developing the characters. Almost every charact...

Not quite as gripping as book one but I love the characters so still enjoyed this second installment. I thought it was a reasonably good whodunnit with some gruesome murders for our detective team to investigate. I went straight onto book 3!CW:(view spoiler)[planned suicide attempt that was interrupted (hide spoiler)]

Dude. I love these books but they are really awful. The first in the series had a horrible hermaphrodite twist. This one, the second, started with a knock about cops beating up transvestites. And the basic plot of this one is so fucking cliched. Minus a bunch of stars. But I like the characters? And it's set locally and I love that? So, I'll keep reading? But they make me feel bad?

4.5★“Marty settled onto the couch and sank into cushions that had been softened over the years by all the dead people he'd loved.”Yes, lots of dead people who have been loved by someone, particularly three old people recently. Marty’s wife was murdered in front of his eyes, and he wasn’t quick enough to stop it. Now, her father has been murdered, executed it would seem, and nobody knows why. He was a much-admired, well-loved pillar of the community who put young orphans through college and that

Only took two sittings to breeze through this crime procedural which didn’t actually feature much of the odd ball members of Monkeewrench. Rather, I think it was a closure for some of the Minneapolis characters we met in the first book. Too bad because I sure did love Gino and Leo— maybe even more than Grace and her crew. Concentration camp survivors — victims of what looks to be a professional killer. And that’s just the start of some fairly intertwined and sad story threads. Great mystery, des...

The second book in this series and it was every bit as good as the first. The authors really know how to write realistic and entertaining dialogue and it is frequently laugh aloud funny. The story is good with multiple murders and quite a few murderers as well which makes guessing whodunnit very difficult indeed! The relationship between Magozzi and Grace takes a few tentative steps forwards but you need to have read book #1 to understand what is going on there. I am loving this series so far an...

Liked this installment, but not quite as much as the first. It seemed like it took a long time for before we started getting answers. Just a lot of around and around. I really enjoyed the humor, and Leo and Gino's easy working relationship. And I'm glad Leo and Grace (view spoiler)[finally seemed to take the plunge at the end! I don't want Leo's heart broken! (hide spoiler)]

3.5 stars rounded up

This is book 2 in the Monkeewrench series. You could read it first; but if you read Monkeewrench aka Want to Play first, then some parts of the book make a bit more sense. And book #2 does have a few more spoilers.That said, the Monkeewrench books are going top speed and top notch for me. The dialogie is outstanding, as usual, and the mystery is very well done. The ending was a suprise.It got a 4 star rating instead of a 5, because I wanted to see much more of the Monkeewrench crew; thought the

I really enjoyed myself reading this. It was just afterwards, thinking about what I read and realizing all the improbabilities and impossibilities of the story, that I decide to rate this book with 3.5 stars. Still-- the pleasure I felt while reading hasn't disappeared.

It was a decent detective novel but didn't really have anything that drove me into the story, I didn't get attached to the people in it and the crime wasn't that exciting to follow but it was written with a decent skill. While I'm not rushing to read another book from P.J Tracy I might read some in another time.

Returning to the second novel in the Monkeewrench series, I am eager to see what P.J. Tracy has in store for readers after an explosive debut. With the Monkeewrench killings complete, Minneapolis Homicide Detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are in a lull. There have been no murders over the past months, leaving them happy to be able to relax and enjoy the weather. However, when a call comes in that an elderly man has been found outside his greenhouse, shot in the head, Magozzi and Rolseth ma...

Just re-read this one. P.J. Tracy has a new huge fan in me. I couldn't wait to read this one after the wonderful "WANT TO PLAY". I thought the first few chapters were dull compared to their previous novel, but as "Live Bait" progresses and as the case unfolds dramatically, the pace quickens.The dialogues are still top-notch. Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are the starts of this book -I love them. I have to say that again all the characters in this story are authentic and human and that's why I giv...

Minnesota certainly seems to be a very dangerous place to live, and the bodies seem to fall right and left in the North Star State. Happily, though, there seem to be a lot of homicide detectives up there to continually put things right, including of course, Lucas Davenport, Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere, that F***ing Virgil Flowers, Cork O'Connor, and Leo Magozzi and Gino Roiseth, among others.The last team inhabits the world of the Monkeewrench series, written by the mother-daughter team, P...

Minneapolis has been going through a murder-free period but all that changes when someone starts killing elderly victims. Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth are puzzled about why well-loved, elderly members of the community are being murdered. Making little headway in solving the crimes, they call in Grace from the Monkeewrench software team to use her programming skills to help look for patterns and what they find is very surprising. I felt the novel was a little slow to get going but once it did t...

Monkeewrench, #2): An elderly man is seemingly executed in public with a bullet to the head! The city feels under siege when it turns out he was just the first victim found! Detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, are on the case; what is the connection? PJ Tracy's penned an interesting and at times compelling mystery thriller. 6 out of 12.

I'm really enjoying this series, and look forward to reading more. This one had a good mixture of humor, sadness, and philosophy. I felt there were some things to really make us think or rethink our attitudes about revenge, whether someone deserves to die, etc. I can't say much about it without a spoiler, but it really shows how killing someone, even if that person seems to deserve it, can have repercussions that destroy people and families over many years and across many miles. It's sad to see....

Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are getting bored with cold cases, when a murder case ends up in their laps. Of course, one murder is shortly followed by another, and another. And the question stands: how are they linked? Perhaps it's time to ask Monkeewrench from some help especially as Leo and Grace are still woo-ing each other from afar...This was PJ Tracy through and through - I confess I'm a fan so I was bound to enjoy this re-read anyway, and I did!

“We all walk around with holes in our hearts. But we still walk around.”“Live Bait” is the second book in the Monkeewrench series. I don’t know if it is a better book than the first one, but I read it quicker and was more into the story. I am not sure what that means. This novel has as its protagonists two detectives who were secondary characters in the first book in the series, and I think that change of focus is part of the reason that I was more caught up in it. Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth...

Book Info: Genre: Mystery/Suspense/ThrillerReading Level: AdultRecommended for: Fans of the genre and seriesTrigger Warnings: Violence, murder, hate crimesMy Thoughts: This is the second book in the Monkeewrench series, following Monkeewrench (review here where formatting allowed). I first read this second book in the series soon after it came out in 2005, but didn’t review it at the time. Since I have acquired books 5 and 6 (after having read the first four), I decided to re-read the whole seri...