Robert M. EverszCritiques

Protagonist Nina is appealing. A quick and fun LA noir adventure. It may be the only one of the series I need.

Just looking at the cover, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book or not. But I thought it was terrific!
I felt like it had enough craziness to make it interesting and enough reality to make you want to believe it. I loved the personality of the narrator/main character and how she dealt with things. I enjoyed watching her change and evolve. I think her story is sad, but it's a great book!

I like the whole idea of someone nice, regular and innocent getting caught up in something big and reading about their coping. And i liked how the setting - Hollywood and its people contrasting with the valley.

But I had my difficulties with this book. First of all I don't like books that start with a disclaimer that says: "I have never written anything down before, but here I go now." It's an unoriginal way to explain the first person viewpoint and not really necessary.

Secondly the heroine made it increasingly difficult for me to sympathise with /identify with /relate to her. I get how she changes and adapts to the new surroundings. I don't get how she has to repeatedly fall for the same kind of selfish guy who will betray her without a second's hesitation. I also didn't like the (drunk) sex scenes, they made me cringe a little.

And thirdly I thought there were some unoriginal and obvious plot moves, like when the author conveniently brings up her messed up family in the end, in order to explain the devil in her. People threaten you, kill your friends and then go after you and you have to defend yourself, so you take a gun in your hands. Must be your violent daddy. Couldn't have anything to with the fact that your life was threatened.

I give it a rating of 5 out of 10 because the idea was good, the setting was interesting but the writing and plot and character development could be better.

Fifth (and final) book in the Nina Zero noir mystery series set in LA, in which Nina is finally able to confront some of the demons from her past—her abusive father, complacent mother, and reasons for her toughness and survival through her time in the California prison system. It all begins when a woman Nina photographed for some pictures for her first artistic gallery showing is killed in a snuff film and a copy of the tape is sent to Nina at Scandal Times. (This seems to be the month for snuff films for some reason!) Was it an accident or was Christine’s death deliberate? Nina must then also deal with her teenaged niece Cassie, who knew Christine, as they attempt to navigate the path of grief, both of them tough and hardened beyond their years. This book was hard to read, knowing it was the last one, but I did like how Eversz chose to end the series. That’s all I’m going to say. Very well done—well, I hesitate to say enjoyable, because it’s hard to read through pages filled with so much pain, but Nina is a toughie and her pragmatism and realism is something I admire greatly. The book is definitely well-crafted and Nina has to be one of my favorite mystery characters ever. Although I know that Eversz had planned a beginning and an end to this series—something I admire him for, disappointing though it may be as a fan—I do hope we will be hearing more from him in the future.

Fourth in the Nina Zero series. Nina is a paparazzi working and living in LA, a tough ex-con with a toothless rottweiler and a crazy cast of friends and acquaintances. When Nina’s sister—whom she hasn’t seen since she was six years old, twenty-four years ago—turns up in town and ends up dead a couple of days later, Nina feels a long-buried obligation to find her killer, even though her sister turned out to be nothing but a con woman—especially because Nina believes that she herself was the intended victim! Who is going around digging up celebrities’ bones?? First James Dean back in Indiana, then Rudy Valentino at a cemetery in LA. And what on earth do the graverobbers want with these bones? Is it a cult of Satanists hell-bent on some strange ritual? Or a group of freaky UFO worshipers who are trying to clone famous people? Or something else? I love this series and really hope Eversz carries on with it—for now, there’s only one left! Waaaah!

#3 in the Nina Zero series, featuring ex-con and celebrity photographer Nina Zero, who lives in LA. While Nina is perched on a hill overlooking a reclusive celebrity’s home hoping for a chance at a photo, a man blunders past her and when he sees here there, attempts to kill her. When she comes to, moments later, a fire is raging down the hillside and has quickly engulfed the movie star’s home in an inferno that no one could survive. Because of Nina’s record and her being at the scene, a desperate arson investigator attempts to pin the blame for the fire on Nina and she begins her own investigation to clear her name of not only arson, but murder. Are the charred remains found inside those of Angela Doubleday? Another complication—a large Rottweiler with no teeth who comes bounding out of the smoke and ashes attaches himself to Nina and she very reluctantly takes him home and feeds him. Something about the pooch tugs at Nina’s heartstrings like no sad human story could. I like Nina a lot and like these books, too. Nina is not always an easy person to like and her life is so full of crap that it’s hard to say I “enjoyed” the book, because I’d be a sadist if I did. LOL But I find the writing style hard to put down and do find Nina a very viable and believable character.

amoral swindling expatriate in Budapest; shallow gen-X protagonist

7.97

Nina Zero, who once ran an errand for a boyfriend that accidentally led to blowing up the Los Angeles airport, landing in prison, and discovering her true kick-ass nature, has achieved a precarious stability in the latest volume of this terrific series. She earns a living taking pictures for a sleazy tabloid, shares her small apartment with a big-hearted, toothless Rottweiler, and stays on the good side of her parole officer. On the biggest night of her life - the first gallery showing of her semi-serious photography - there is another, more gruesome opening night. An anonymously delivered computer disc turns out to contain crudely-filmed S&M erotica in which a drugged woman appears to be strangled to death. Underneath the bondage gear, Nina recognizes the distinctive tattoo of her friend Christine. Nina sets out to find out what happened to her friend, taking us on a tour of the weird side of LA, complete with regression therapists, phone sex workers, and B-movie producers. Along the way, she discovers that Christine is not the only victim. She also learns more about herself as she tries to take care of a street-wise niece, get acquainted with her violent father, and get involved with a cop who views the world through the same nocturnal black-and-white lens as her camera. The conclusion is exhilarating and heartbreaking at the same time. I love this series and am sad this is the final volume in the series. Nina Zero is one of the most intriguing characters in contemporary crime fiction.

Nina Zero rocks! In this book, the second in a series (after SHOOTING ELVIS), Nina gets out of prison and needs to keep her nose clean or her tough PO will violate her. (Typical of this book, the parole officer is a complex and likable tough lady who isn't on stage a lot, but when she's there, she's real.) Nina makes an arranged marriage and finds herself attracted to the guy in spite of herself--and then he's murdered. Even minor characters in this book are drawn in indelible originality. But most of all--Nina Zero is a knock-out character! Smart, scarred by life, funny as hell, fast on her feet, full of feeling and hard as nails. I know next time someone wonders whether men can write convincing female characters, Eversz's Nina Zero will be my Exhibit A.

Can't really remember why I bought it, or when, or even how, but most likely it was lying in a box of charity shop books, 10p a pick, and I thought, Elvis? Shooting?, this could be fast, clean, vaguely hip. On closer investigation I soon fell off actually wanting to go through with it, but back then I had my topsy-oppressive Reading Rules to obey, so it was consumed.

It was quick, clean but fell a little flat on its hip (hah-ah). The whole book had a colourful, cartoony border to its characters and descriptions, which didn't quite gel with the theme and the crimes. This was even apparent in the author's biography. I enjoyed the art gallery scenes, I seem to remember, but I'm not sure whether this was because I found them comparable to my experiences, or completely off-the-mark. Probably the latter, as I tend to enjoy sneering.

Mt. Eversz has made some success of the protagonist character I see, good for him, five or six books now. I very much doubt I'll be joining her again, but that's not to say it wasn't worth the time. It entertained. I'm writing about it now.