"Hoax", a novel by Robert Tannenbaum

Why did I bought this book? Oh, yes, because I thought it would be a nice mystery novel about priests molesting little boys. The topic was quite a trend when I bought the book, and I wanted to see a fictional reflection of it. Unlike my friend Carrie, I am not into "sex with minors", Hyne forbid "sex with children", for I find it scarry and too improper, not to mention, forcing kids into adult situations revolts my stomach, make it sex, war, work... kids must be kids, and whomever dares to take that from them should be skinned with a potato peeler and left to be eaten by the beasts. I do was hoping to get a few glimpses of something juicy, which in my case is more on the line of "psychological twistedness", and why not? some gay sex (between adults). But the main idea was the "plot".

Mr. Tannenbaum is a lawyer, and I hope he does better as a lawyer, because the book was far from good. Au contraire. The plot was saggy, badly built, IF built at all. There were hilts of hard, rought rape thrown into the mix like a way to keep you in the topic, but it was all too bad to be real. I would have thrown the book out of the window if the windows of the plane could be opened. And believe me, I tried. Even considered stashing it into the toilet.

The book works on several lines that will tend to join. There's a recurrent use of "start by the end" kind of storytelling with at first is nice and by the second-third time is annoying. The characters are either flat or ... "plain", which, yeah, it's the same. There's no dimension to either of them. The family circumstances of the (what was their name?) Karps are just too ludicrous. I mean, Italian, catholic mother with maffia complex married to Jew DA raise an extremely intellingent girl and to gorgeous twins. Mom can't stay with the family because "her past haunts her" but goes bonking Dad like the next Girl of the Playboy Mansion. The family story is bad and too exagerated. Well, maybe, id you make them all... elves and make it into a sci-fi story and then say there's an ancient curse on them, it might work. Otherwise it's gonna get you puking worse than all the turbulence in the sky.

The book is wasted on who-wants-whom and how-they-try-to-get-into-their-pants, plus a lot of really pointless explanations, detailing and shit that drives you nowhere. Murder here and there, and up to the last minute you just want to know how do they find all that. Because there must be some case-breaking shit, right? Wrong. And I'm spoiling it because you really don't want to waste your money to find out that, at the end, everything is rendered to the DA, and that's it. Case closed, bad men into jail... oh, and you will wonder, what the hell happened with Alejandro Gracía's case? Well, don't wait for an answer in the book, because suddenly the kid is going to the University. Oh yeah, because NY is kinda like France, where there's not such thing as "affording education" because it's for free. Oh yeah, because scholarships are there for the taking. Dude, I'll tell a friend of mine to stop paying all that money for some half assed degree and go for Law or Med to New York! It's for free there!!

It's not funny either that everytime the author mentions a recount of the things happened so far, he tells how the teller feels he or she's telling some bad cop story or some bad movie. Well, if the plot is so bad, DON'T WRITE IT, DUDE! Yes, it's bad, and unreal, and stupid and it could have been fixed with a good ending, but not that SHIT of an ending you wrote! Oh, oh, and there's more! There are more book of this man, and they also feature THE KARPS!! Like one time wasn't enough.

No plot, no direction, no rhythm, and an underlaying despise for both the catholic church and the Latin community. It was a waste of time and money I recommend others to avoid.