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Someone is killing the Fat Cats, and nobody seems to care. Rudy and Jim are part of a rowdy group and the police find it easy to dismiss any incident as self-inflicted. They're going to have to find a reason for the murders if they're going to stay alive. They love CABTAGI, the biggest, loudest, cycle tour and rolling party in the world, but the killings have to be connected somehow, because the Fat Cats Cycle Club exists only to eat, drink, and bike their way across Iowa for one week each year. Now a young woman has disappeared during the cycle tour and Jim is convinced this loss must be connected to the attacks on his friends. They plan a trap for the killer, knowing they have to triumph or die.
Ride of the Fat Cats is complete. I think a bit more polish and I could shop it around.
Greetings,I usually hang out in the fantasy section, but I thought I'd wander over to the mystery section for once since the title of your book caught my attention. I hope my comments are useful for you, but if they aren't, please feel free to slate it down to a reader who doesn't deal much in mysteries.Chapter One, Scene One:: The first thing I noticed about this mystery is the amount of description you are using to set up the girl having problems with her bicycle. You use a lot of floral language and purple prose, which can have its rightful place in a lot of stories, but it felt like a bitch much at the start f a mystery. There was no set up for the mystery right away, just a girl with a broken down bicycle. However, the biggest problem I had through the first few pages was that we're told everything; you don't really show it to us.Chapter One, Scene Two ::This is sort of ironic but we've gone from no names to so many names that I'm having a hard time keeping everyone straight. Starting with Alex and Rudy worked well enough -- two is easy to keep track of, but the POV isn't very deep... there is no sense of immediacy behind Rudy's voice right now. Also, your use of 'They' made me stumble. Who exactly is they? I suspect it is some other bicyclists, but I'm not sure. At this point, so many people get mentioned that I don't know who is who -- or why they're all together anyway. It feels like the purpose of this scene was setting up the characters, although you show them meeting the girl & the truck, which I'll assume is a setup for later. There was just nothing to hook me into this story at this point.Chapter One, Scene Three ::When you abort the likely murder/rape set up in Scene one, I get that there is a serial killer on the loose, but I just don't have any connection or care that he is around. There currently isn't a mystery, which I really think needs to be present. But, I don't read mysteries very often -- but the ones I enjoy reading have a murder mystery set up within the first one or two scenes. At the very least, there is some form of drama and tension that hooks me into it. This current rendition just didn't have that for me.Also, this reads like something I'd expect out of a YA. I don't have anything against YA, I just got a feeling that this was perhaps for that market. (An observation, not a criticism of any sort.)Overall, I am giving this two stars -- I just don't think it is ready for publication and needs a lot of fine-tuning to get the tension built and a real good hook thrown in. I didn't feel submersed in the world, and I felt that I was always at arm's length from the characters. You have a decent writing style, but I think you could enhance your POV to be more behind / linked to the characters and do more showing than telling in this first, critical chapter. I didn't read beyond the first chapter; the things that kept me holding on were defused,so I didn't have anything to try to really follow.
Chapter One, Scene One::The biggest problem I'm having so far is that you're holding your character at arm's length. 4% in, and I don't even know the girl's name. You switch to the farmer via head hopping, and we don't even learn his name right away. This would have caused me to put the book down and cease reading if I were in a book store looking for something to read.I don't feel that the farmer's head-hop POV is necessary; if anything, it ruined the tension for me and was too revealing all-in-all.Rudy's character was a little stronger throughout, but I really didn't get a feel that these characters were _adults_. You gave ages, but I really felt they were teenagers rather than adults. The way they talked, the way they interacted with one another, I just didn't feel that it matched the ages that you presented.All in all, I think there is room for improvement for your characters here. The age issue aside, I constantly felt that there was a huge gap between me and the characters. You told us how these characters felt or thought without really *showing* it to me. I want to feel the character's fear, see what they see, and learn from them and of them as the story progresses.Over all, I'm giving this two stars. I think if you strengthen the POV and get more behind the characters, you will be able to make Rudy and the girl (I *think* her name is Jamie, but I'm not sure...?) you might be able to turn this into a really entertaining story.
Chapter One, Scene One::I really don't know what is going on in the first scene -- I just don't see the mystery elements yet. There are some hints of potential conflict with the farmer, but I didn't feel any real tension from this. The POV was just too far away from the character and her emotions for me to get behind her and worry about the fact she's getting picked up by a stranger with a gun and the reveal that she is going to die in probably a very unpleasant way. I think this could be really strengthened by keeping it to the girl's POV -- reveal her name, treat her like an actual character, and then reveal she died... leave the mystery the farmer had a motive. (This is a mystery, after all! Don't be shy of letting it be a mystery.)Chapter One, Scene Two ::Plot wise, this was a setup scene with a small hint of interactions and motives for future murders. All in all, I was hopeful because the characters had names, but disappointed that the mystery elements just didn't seem to be present for me. It is almost coming across as a thriller that is trying to be a mystery, but you're writing a mystery so the elements of a thriller aren't coming to the forefront.If you can make your opening scenes more in line with your story's description, I think that you could turn this plot into something interesting. Right now, however, I didn't feel or see any of that plot description from your overview showing through to the actual writing.Chapter One, Scene Three ::Plot wise, this is the scene that lost my interest in this story. You started setting up (and with better execution, I think you could make that initial setup work) and aborted it. By the start of chapter two, I was questioning what the actual story was, and was so focused on trying to find the abandoned plot that I just couldn't get into the other elements of the story.I definitely think that the promise is there, but that the execution could be improved. I like that you aren't afraid to take your time setting up the mystery, but at the same time, there needs to be those mystery elements there from the start -- or something really, really interesting to hook me in.Overall, I am giving this category 2* -- there is definitely potential here, but what had me interested was defused too early. You tell us why he won't do it, rather than leaving us with tension and wondering if he would still do it. I think you can do a lot with what you have if you just strengthen your POV, strengthen your tension, and don't be afraid to disguise the motives and presence of the farmer. I feel that the major point of a mystery is to question everything in search of the suspect. You gave us the suspect and his crimes right away. At that point, the mystery has been solved to me, so I don't feel a need to read.Good luck with this story, and I hope that my feedback is of some use to you.
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