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Lunch » Tags » Mystery » Reviews » The Killing of Mindi Quintana (Book)

The Killing of Mindi Quintana (Book)

1 rating: 3.0

By Jeffrey A. Cohen a novel of Mystery and Suspense

A killer with a book... A lawyer pushed too far... Freddy Builder kills Mindi Quintana and is writing the book about their relationship everybody wants--it's a lying rewrite of her life and of their miserably thin involvement. Excerpts appearing … see full wiki

Tags: Book, Mystery, Novel

1 review about The Killing of Mindi Quintana (Book)

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Interesting Character Study That Loses Steam About Halfway Through

Mar 9, 2010

by MichaelN

Rating:

This book's writing style reminded me of Max Barry's (Syrup, Jennifer Government) novels. At times it uses a stream on conciousness approach but at other times it can be very descriptive.

Freddi is a china department manager in Chanet, a department store in Philadelphia. People are constantly talking about the displays that he builds in his department. Management notices Freddi too and name him manager of the month twice. Freddi for the most part couldn't care less and just works there because he needs a job and builds the displays to kill time.

One day the upper managers approach him and ask him to lunch. Freddi couldn't care less about the lunch and his biggest fear is that during lunch they will tell him he is being named manager of the year. To him this accolade would be a source of ultimate embarassment because his picture would be everywhere and it would cement his failure at doing anything else. The main thing Freddi wants is to be a published writer and the ridiculous award would make him like a circus clown.

At the lunch, the managers tell him that the real reason for the lunch is that they want him to be more like one of them and his first task will be to fire the chocolate department manager in a creative way. They will hire actors to stage the event to lead up to the manager's firing.

While Freddi is at work, Mindi Quintana happens to walk into his department. Freddi had met Mindi in college and talked to her about his dreams of being a writer. Mindi had always wanted to read some of his work but Freddi was reluctant.
The two had dated for a few months and then not seen each other for years until Mindi needed to replace a prized dish that her mother had broken.

Freddi is attracted to Mindi again and manages to get her phone number. Mindi has had a difficult life with a father who is a semi-mobster and recently released from prison. Mindi works for a magazine and Freddi hopes that maybe she will publish one of his stories.

Mindi will ultimately be murdered and there will be a courtroom battle between Michael, a DA with political ambitions who is married to the mayor's daughter and Philip as Freddi's public defender.

The book tries to show how the mind of a killer works where sheer rage is brought about by a number of smaller incidents(that really only occur in the killer's mind) that later get set off by something that upsets the killer.

I tried to rate this book higher than three stars but found that it dragged after Mindi's death. Most books tend to pick up steam as they go along but this book appeared to be the exact opposite.

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