Review: Codename Chimera by J.K. Percy

By: J. K. Persy

Published: January 5, 2013

Published By: Self Published

Description: A famous millionaire dies under mysterious circumstances in the Brooklyn ghetto. What it was that made him go to such a dangerous place at night remains a mystery. The only clue is a book, Mythical Creatures of Ancient Greece, left on his body and opened at a page on Chimera. Private detective Kevin Kris takes on the case, helped by Penny, his trusty assistant, and Michael, his best friend. They soon uncover a chain of bloody events shrouded in mystery from the past. Little by little the private detective and his friends discover the real truth hidden by the Man With No Face.

My Thoughts:

This book was given to me by the author in exchange for an honest review:

I’m not a mystery person and I usually stay away from the whole genre, so when I was contacted to read Codename Chimera by the author, I was a bit hesitant. I knew I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it the way I should and I didn’t want to ,mess anything up. Regardless, the author said they would still like my review, so I decided to give this genre a try.

The description pretty much sums up the plot of the story. A famous millionaire dies, and our MC, Kevin is hired to take the case and prove that the millionare’s wife was the one who killed him. However, as he begins researching and looking at the events, he and his team learn that the wife is innocent, and that it may be related to a necklace, and an ancient text. The events following are their discoveries as the look deeper into the mystery and the ultimate resolution.

The story in and of itself wasn’t at all bad. It was interesting to try to figure out who was the one who did it. It even have me a bit of interest into mysteries as a whole. (you’ll see a review on a mystery on my blog in the future.) That being said, I didn’t much like this particular book. Things didn’t seem to progress and sometimes it was a bit hard to follow. The detective just sort of uncovered things super easily and people spilled information. Things just always popped into his head without me being able to understand how he came to the conclusion. In my opinion, people as a whole know how to lie pretty easily, so for them to spill secrets accidentally so clumsily, it was just unrealistic. In addition, there was a bunch of unnecessary information and filller that didn’t seem to help progress the story along, and I eventually found myself merely skipping over this information. There were some cool riddles that were included but that I couldn’t figure out and they frustrated me, since even they didn’t seem to really belong.

I don’t necessarily think this was a bad book, just not at all for me. I didn’t like it, and had I not been ultra curious about the ending, I wouldn’t have been able to finish it. I give it 1.5 stars. It wasn’t at all for me. I should have trusted my gut from the beginning, though it did make me interested in other mysteries. I would suggest this to those who like to read mysteries, like lots of additional information, and enjoy solving riddles.