Tales of Adventure with Nap Lapkin by Lance Manion
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (156 pages)
Heat Level: Sensual
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeFinally! All of the stories under one cover. Nap Lapkin, America’s top agent, respected and feared by every agency in Washington, is both a lover and fighter and so much more. And less. But mostly more. There can be no argument that this is the funniest book ever written. No argument whatsoever.
Some heroes dance to the rhythm of their own drums.
The narrator in this book had a wonderful sense of humor. One of the coolest things about it was that they appeared to be aware of the genre they were working with and made many sly references to what an audience expects from a mystery. I giggled my way through these references as I waited to find out what would happen to the characters next.
There were times when I found it tricky to follow the plot because of how many times it slowed down to explain something that was loosely related to what the characters were currently experiencing. While these asides were often pretty funny as I mentioned above, there were so many of them that it was hard to stay focused on the main point of the storyline.
One of the things the narrator did a very good job of was subverting the audience’s expectations. There are certain tropes in the mystery genre that most people who are familiar with it will expect to see. It was amusing to take note of the narrator’s creative twists on these tropes, especially when it came to the audience’s expectations of what a government agent should be like. While this was firmly rooted in the suspense genre, the author also wasn’t afraid to borrow liberally from many other genres in order to make things fit together. The combination of that alongside the reinvention of tropes made this a memorable read for sure.
Tales of Adventure with Nap Lapkin should be read by anyone who enjoys a tongue-in-cheek approach to the mystery genre.
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