The title The Bloodletter's Daughter and appropriate cover art immediately intrigued me, however, the backcover blurb promised so much that was undelivered. Prologues are usually ignored by readers. Readers want to cut to the chase, at least this reader does. Chapter one lacked the hook of a great opening. Stability plus inciting incident equals instability, followed by a struggle to resolve instability, and return to stability. That is the currently accepted literary standard for opening scenes. Today, that first introduction of the stability of the protagonist's world may be as short as two sentences. In chapter one, Lafferty's generalized weather report and endless backstory about a (literally) dirty old man playing with himself while ogling a naked teenage bathhouse girl is not my idea of an inciting incident and really put me off. Had I not agreed to review this book, I would have put it down here. Although Linda Lafferty is obviously talented I can not in good conscience recommend this book.

David Klein's novel drives home the point that bad things often happen to good people. I enjoyed reading this book. My gold standard is simple; character plus conflict equals drama, and drama is the indispensable component for good fiction. Klein's book abounds with believable characters with more than enough conflict to go around melded into a seamless plot-line that strikes at the myth of quiet, peaceful, and boring suburbia. David Klein represents a fresh new voice in the world of fiction, and I look forward to his second novel.

Overall I liked this book. Raised by my single mom on the Texas Gulf Coast in the 50's and 60's I immediately identified with Buckley. Reading about Buckley's trials and tribulations growing up and writing his handbook was like seeing a video of my own life. The insertion of excerpts from Buckley's Handbook tended to distract; I skimmed over these in a hurry to get back to the meat of the story. I would like to see more from this obviously talented young author.

I have not read this type of book in years; I am tired of protagonists who are depicted as being somehow larger than life. I was looking for a different kind of protagonist; Zee a likable character with a tortured soul presents as a different kind of protagonist, she and the other characters are not larger than life but represent the very essence of life with all of its flaws. That is why I choose to read and review this book and I am extremely glad that I did. I was hooked from the first line. Born and raised on the Texas Gulf Coast I felt immediately drawn into this delightfully surprising story. The secret formula for good fiction is character plus conflict equals drama. Barry's characters are believable and conflicted; the drama leaps off the pages as the reader feverishly reads on to discover what happens next. The story moves like a freight train through a seamless plot that finally ends, leaving the reader with the sense that this is not really the ending for Zee but rather just the beginning.

I discovered this book, or rather my publisher did when he did a title search prior to publishing my first novel also titled Point Deception. By way of explanation Muller's book is about a geographical location (crime scene) and its inhabitants and my title comes from the naming scheme for Coast Guard 82-foot patrol boats; the Point Deception in my book is the pseudonym for the real Point Welcome. That said, I obtained a copy of Muller's book and I was glad that I did. There is a simple formula for writing good fiction and that is character conflict = drama. Muller's book has these in abundance. It was very easy for me to identify with the characters and insert myself into the action. This is a book that I will read again and again as I suspect that I probably have missed something the first time.
Jim Gilliam, Author, the different Point Deception