We used this book often to help us benchmark industrial customer's energy systems. Part of the data collection for energy efficiency upgrade potential required us to benchmark the client's overall energy use on a unit basis against an "average" process. This book was very helpful in that regard.

I really enjoyed this book until I became sure who commited the crime. Unfortunately, this was half way through the book. I continued to read it, and continued to enjoy it until my prediction came true. How very disapointing. The dialog and the characters are very funny and engaging but the story that had promise, fissled. This book was an Edgar Award Winner which considering the forseeable ending, I found very surprising. I will definately read more books by Steven Womack and hope that the stories are as good as the rest of the book.

In DEAD FOLKS' BLUES, the protagonist is a newspaper reporter who is fired and becomes a private investigator. All fictional detectives have to have some type of other professional background, and this one for Harry James Denton seems to really work.

When an old-college fling comes to his office wanting him to get her doctor husband out of trouble, Denton is extatic to land his first case. Rachel pays him in advance, and he heads to her husband's hospital to do a little background checking. In the process, he is knock out while Conrad Fletcher is murdered. The story really takes off from there, as Harry soon finds out that there are a multitude of suspects. No matter where Harry turns, he runs into a dead end.

Steven Womack does an admirable job of mingling several different characters. They are all tied together quite nicely in a good, cohesive plot, chock full of witty dialogue and humorous situations.

DEAD FOLKS' BLUES is a fairly entertaining novel, and a good solid effort for the first novel in the series. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested. This is pretty good thriller.

This was the first in the Harry James Denton series...and I devoured it in one afternoon. I had to have more! Went out and got as many of them as I could find...and read them all just as fast. Once I started reading, I couldn't put the books down. I was addicted...sigh.

What was cool is that I lived in Nashville at the time, and the setting was there. I learned more about the city through reading his books than I had in the entire time I'd been there.
What even made it better is that Harry lived pretty close to where I was living in real life! He even wrote about the very grocery store I went to every week...

The main character was endearing, yet rough-edged to say the least. I loved everything about the series. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up...I betcha get the next in the series, too...and the next, and the next.....

Although not as detailed or as well-written as it could be, this is a sold book focusing on one of the most talented (as well as one of the toughest) studio presidents ever. Vulgar, often hated, Cohn is still a fascinating figure in Hollywood history. Highlights of this book include Clifford Odets actual Eulogy for Cohn and information about the relationship between Frank Capra and Cohn.