Booklist starred review of MATING SEASON

[Jon Loomis]

Advanced Review – Uncorrected Proof
Issue: April 1, 2009


Mating Season.
Loomis, Jon (Author)
May 2009. 304 p. St. Martin's/Minotaur, hardcover, $24.95. (9780312367701).
When Kenji Sole is found stabbed to death in her lavish Provincetown, Massachusetts, beach home,
Detective Frank Coffin and Sergeant Lola Winters have no lack of suspects. The beautiful and wealthy
victim had a voracious appetite for sex with a rotating cast of older, married men, whose bedroom
activities she recorded surreptiously, while her carriage-house tenant ran a home-based porn business. And
she had just threatened to have her rich attorney father declared incompetent after he changed his will to
favor his young mistress rather than his daughter. Amid the investigation, Coffin must find his dementia-
suffering mother, who has run away from her nursing home, and work at impregnating his girlfriend, who
desperately wants a baby. Meanwhile, Kenji’s hidden DVR becomes the hot potato that could solve the
crime. Coffin’s second outing (after the acclaimed High Season, 2007) hardly could be better: Loomis’
prose is crisp and smart, and his characterizations ring true, with none more appealing than Coffin himself,
a cop with a phobia of corpses. Reminiscent of Robert B. Parker at his best.

— Michele Leber

I loves me some Booklist. And Ms. Leber.

[Tom Cooke]

Every little bit helps. With another one out there it might significantly raise the numbers on both of them.

[Jon Loomis]

Thanks, Tom. We'll see what happens w/ sales--it does seem to be helping the first one a bit on Amazon, which is a fine thing.

[Tom Cooke]

Congrats on the wonderful review. I'm still trying to get my friends to say something that nice about my work. Good luck on sales. I guess I'll have to start saving my lunch money so I can afford one in May.

[Dana King]

Early Spenser novels were first rate. Parker admitted he was pretty much ripping off Chandler and let the style evolve; even the books in what I think of as the middle period are good, due in large part to the interplay between Spenser and Hawk, which was as entertaining and snappy as dialog gets. The ;last several years, he seems to be mailing them in, and even the Spenser/Hawk interplay is tired, with a been there, done that feel.

[Jon Loomis]

Well, that's my recollection, but I haven't read one in a while. Fans in the millions? Sigh. A boy can dream...

[I. J. Parker]

Lord, yes. Spenser with an S. The poet. The Spenser fans must be in the millions, and they like to get that right. :) Snappy dialogue? I must have read only recent ones.

[Jon Loomis]

Thanks, John.

[John McFetridge]

Good one, Jon.

Spenser - with an S, remeber. You english profs.....

[Jon Loomis]

thanks, I.J. I think I have more in common with Hiaasen, but he's not really a crime guy. I like Parker, a lot, too. The early Spencer books were tons of fun. It's an easy comparison because they were atmospheric things set in New England, with lots of snappy dialogue. I'll take it.

[I. J. Parker]

Excellent, Jon! Not that I like Robert B., but reviewers like to throw around names and it does get you sales.