Lover Child by Stephen Kronwith, M.D.
What's It About?
When Stephen Kronwith told us he was sending along his third novel, I thought — only for about a nanosecond — since I had read and reviewed his first two that maybe someone else on the BookTrib team should take this one.When Stephen Kronwith told us he was sending along his third novel, I thought — only for about a nanosecond — since I had read and reviewed his first two that maybe someone else on the BookTrib team should take this one.
Might readers be jaded already by my glowing words for the first two in the series — Lover Boy (review) and Lover Girl (review) — and figure a third analysis from the same voice might generate a predictable result?
No apologies here. For isn’t it the great pleasure of The Reading Unknown to discover an author so in tune with your tastes — for swift plot, stylish writing, spicy humor and all-around pure craziness – that keeps us coming back for more? In Kronwith, I’ve found my joyous match — and should a fourth and fifth book in the series be on its way, you likely will have to hear from me again.
A TIGHTLY CRAFTED MURDER MYSTERY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER
In book three, Lover Child (had you already figured that out?), the author magnificently connects the dots — lots and lots of dots — with each “dot” representing a character nuttier than the last. We have a former top mob family hitman (who is converting to Judaism), his beautiful daughter Angelica (a former professional killer with a conscience — don’t they all have one), a shady condo lawyer who extracts $250 per to make sure a resident’s pet meets board standards (whatever those are), a corrupted co-op board impersonating the cast of Clue, and a 105-year-old LGBTQ resident who was only about 70 years ahead of her time and the LGBTQ identity.
Sprinkle that with the couple Detective Jane Rieger-Franklin and her wife Anna, who inherited billions when they conspired in an earlier book to murder Anna’s husband (for good cause, of course), their child Felicity and her soon-to-be-adopted sister and partner in, ahem, crime Khalessi.
And that’s without mentioning one of our primary lead characters: a baked potato.
A SWIFT PLOT AND STYLISH WRITING
With all the high hilarity and insanity, Lover Child at its core is a tightly crafted murder mystery of the first order. What is made to look like a suicide quickly raises suspicions, particularly of eye doctor Joseph Peck, our star in book one (even though the Lover Boy title role goes to the iconic hitman Sammy Vivino) who matures by leaps and bounds from book to book.
If you read Lover Boy and Lover Girl, you know the drill and won’t be disappointed, especially if you love quirky characters who commit outrageous acts but are totally decent and lovable.
Kronwith is fond of the expression, “Man plans, and God laughs.” He uses it at least twice in his series. Ironically, Kronwith plans — meticulously, with every character introduced for a purpose that is germane to his story. And of course, we laugh — aloud and a lot.
