Dog River Blues (A Wes Darling Sailing Mystery Book 2) Kindle Edition

I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel to Key Lime Blues. Wes is again in trouble and getting beaten up repeatedly. He's also got the ladies after him too. I like reading about his experiences taking his boat to different locales. The author is great about describing the areas so that you feel like you can almost see them. Wes also meets plenty of colorful characters while he is in Mobile. There is only a mention of the phobic psychic Elvis but I look forward to reading more about him in future books.

It seems I've chosen a misleading title, but as Wes meets his previously unknown paternal relatives, his life takes a turn. He's lead on a rough chase where it takes time to filter the good guys from the bad.
I've never considered myself a fan of high intensity and action but I loved this book! I would recommend this series to anyone who loves adventure with a side of wit, but I would suggest they start with the first book of the series.

As a professional mariner I like to read about sailors, marinas, and adventure. I especially enjoy it when the writer knows. what he is talking about. Mike Jastrzebski obviously knows boats and marinas. Wes Darling is a non stop adventure. I bought this book several months ago and put off reading it because it was set in Mobile, which is forty three miles from my home in Pensacola. Knowing how most people think of Mobile, I expected a snow birdy adventure celebrating the sleepy old city under the trees. So much for expectations. This was a vicarious delight and a believable tale that kept on entertaining. I'm looking up the rest of Mike's books when I finish this review. Do yourself a favor and do the same.

I'm a little ambivalent about this book. I'm hovering between saying I liked it and that it was just okay. I won't give it 2 stars because it wasn't totally rife with errors (there were only a few) and it also didn't anger me the way some books do when the writer falls too short. But there just wasn't a lot of meat to the story.

Wes Darling, the protagonist, is an ex-PI, so I expected him to use some of those skills to actually investigate the theft of his grandfather's ill-gotten WWII booty, or at least to find his family (that he never knew existed and whose names he didn't even know) to begin with when he arrives in Mobile. But no. He pulls up to the dock (he lives on a boat) and right off the bat, his family members have sought him out. Way too convenient that his mother made a call-ahead unbeknownst to him. This is the beginning of the theme that follows through in the book: everyone is always one-up on Wes. Wes also seems like a bumbling novice rather than a seasoned PI when he is constantly gotten the better of and having his ass beat to within an inch of his life. Not to mention, [SPOILER ALERT] when he, Jessica, and Roy show up at Fish's place the very first time and a caddy is noted to be in the driveway, I immediately remembered that Rusty drove off in a caddy earlier. Now I know it was Rusty who betrayed him to Fish. Did the PI investigator remember that? Nope. Holy moly. That was my first clue that our hero was a little too thick to be a believable ex-PI. As well as the fact that he told Rusty right off the bat about what he was there for. I thought he was nuts for spilling the beans to some complete stranger. Surely there are other ways for a true PI to get information besides telling someone you just met that you are after a stolen priceless artifact? [DONE SPOILING] And he made quite a few other mistakes and made choices and left questions unanswered that I thought were not in character with someone in his field, despite the fact that he didn't really want to take on the task and was ambivalent about learning more about his new-found family. Some of these mistakes were as simple as not being aware of his surroundings. Come on. And when you have a chance to get out of the line of sight of potential bad guys ([SPOILER] I'm thinking about the end when he hears the yacht before it comes into view and he doesn't hide...what an idiot [DONE SPOILING]), you take it, right? Not Wes. He's always too darn tired and wore out to even make a good run for it...what a wuss.

I don't want my protagonist to be perfect. After all, a good character arc should be present so we can see some growth, but don't tell me my hero is an ex-PI, then make the other secondary characters smarter than him. LOL. He also seemed to be attractive to the women of the world, but I wasn't quite sure why. The dude was a narcoleptic punching bag with no common sense. Just sayin'.

The author could have done a lot more with this story.

Wes Darling manages to find himself plenty of trouble doing investigations and getting beat up reminiscent of Sam Spade. Very good reading, suspenseful and mysterious.