Review of Medium Well Done by Eddie Jones
A.E. Jackson Review Score: 3 / 5 Ravens
How was this review scored?
Author Eddie Jones does a great job telling a fun story full of ambience and themed imagery. Medium Well Done features fast-paced beats which keep the story moving along until the satisfying conclusion.
Readers will enjoy the unique, deep point-of-view voice of the main character Nick Caden. For fans of humor mixed with mystery and a dash of classic horror tropes, the Caden Chronicles are perfect. The stories are kind of a Scooby-Doo mystery mixed with Tom Sawyer adventure. In this case, Nick Caden is Shaggy while his sidekick friend Jazz plays the Velma equivalent.
The most satisfying part of the telling is that Jones uses very little exposition. The story is told mostly through descriptive dialogue, internal thoughts, and characters in action as they move the tale along.
Nick Caden is no stranger to supernatural mysteries. From uncovering vampire killers to catching zombies and werewolves, Nick relies on truth, facts, and his favorite cop and detective shows to solve crimes. But what he witnesses in Bonaventure Cemetery leaves Nick stumped.
When Nick's neighbor, Keisha, goes missing and is presumed dead, Nick is forced into an unlikely partnership with Jaz, a teen with a "spiritual gift" that lets her "know things about the dead"-or so she claims. As the pair work to uncover the facts, they need to rely on the word of "Sistah Séance," a Gullah woman on Georgia's Sea islands, who seems able to "bring up the dead."
In this mystery, Nick must prove that a young man falsely accused of murder is innocent. Problem is, the only eye witness is the victim . . . a ghost.
This time Nick doesn't have all the answers, but he asks the right questions. And what he learns is worse than any lies a fake fortuneteller might pass off as truth.
The superstitions and over-active imaginations of characters blur the line between reality and the supernatural. Nick Caden is well equipped to solve the mystery with one foot on both sides of that line.
Medium Well Done carries with it a touch of social commentary on race relations which is delivered fair and even. The voices of each character are unique and the author’s narrator voice disappears completely.
Overall, this was a good mystery that wraps up all the loose-end clues with a satisfying conclusion.
Parents can trust the Caden Chronicles. There is no sexual dialogue or situations, violence, or strong language, only positive moral values and a wee little bit of humor.
Eddie is an award-winning author of middle-grade fiction with HarperCollins. Eddie calls his novels, "fun, fast reads for boys who don't like to read." "The Caribbean Chronicles" is a humorous time-travel pirate fantasy adventure series. The third book, "The End of Calico Jack," won first place in the Selah Awards for Young Adult Literature.
An avid sailor with a great sense of humor, Eddie has been married to a girl he met at a stoplight in West Palm Beach during spring break for... "too many years," Eddie's wife says. "Not enough," says Eddie. Father of two boys, he's also a pirate at heart who loves to surf.
Read more from Eddie Jones at https://eddiejones.org and find him on social media at Facebook(@EddieJonesHumor), and Twitter(@EddieJonesTweet).