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For Avid Reader's TBR Challenge this month, I read J.A. Konrath's Whiskey Sour, the first book in his Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels mystery series.

Why this book? When I was standing in front of the TBR shelves indecisively last week, trying to figure out which book to pull from the among the embarrassment of riches (it actually is a little embarrassing -- guests never fail to comment on the bookshelves and how they are overstuffed with books), this one caught my eye. I thought perhaps Avid Reader initially recommended the series or reviewed one of the books, but when I searched her archives nothing came up, so I'm not entirely sure how/why it came to be on the TBR. Unless maybe the cover art and title caught my eye? I have been known to drink a whiskey sour or two in my time. Anyway, I pulled Whiskey Sour off the shelf because seeing the author's name reminded me of his post on pricing and free reads via Kindle, which struck me as thoughtful.

What did I think of the cover art? Liked it -- love the colors and the drink on the cover. It's a bit plain, but that's not a bad thing IMO.

The back blurb:

Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is an insomniac Chicago cop with a train wreck of a personal life and a stalker bent on adding her to his murder list. Join Jack, her binge-eating partner, a sleazy PI, and two very stupid FBI agents on a wild hunt for the Gingerbread Man 00 a killer who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Huck Finn.

What did I think? Pretty good. Jack is a train wreck personally, but a very sharp detective. Loved the secondary characters. When I started reading, I wasn't sure if this was the first book of the series or somewhere in the middle -- but after a couple of pages, I realized it didn't matter, because Konrath managed to share whatever details I needed to know on the page. (Of course, I learned after the fact that this was the first book of the series.)

Anything I didn't like? Jack's resistance to surveillance and protection when a sociopath (psychopath?) serial killer was stalking her struck me as a little foolish. On one hand, she's a professional, so she feels like she can protect herself. On the other hand, the Gingerbread Man demonstrates early on how accessible she is, so why be so cavalier about her own personal safety?

Keep or pass on? Keep. Although I may download a free copy of the ebook (available here), and pass on my paper copy in an effort to trim my personal library.

Konrath has a post up with a summary of the books and their order here.