Fresh out of prison, Richie Forman tries to settle back into his life in the Bay Area. By day, he works at a law firm dedicated to freeing innocent men from prison. By night, he makes a living impersonating Frank Sinatra. But then his ex-best friend is found hacked to death in his garage, and Richie becomes the prime suspect.

The premise of the book sounded interesting but it never really drew me in. The characters were just so-so and I didn’t grow to really like any. The tense situations seemed to resolve too easily. Overall it was only mildly interesting. ( )

This is not a short book, but I was so engrossed in the audio version that I just couldn't stop listening until I got to the end--stayed up late and bent my schedule around being able to listen. :) It's a fairly gritty murder mystery but has so many twists and turns that you just have to keep going. The characters were intriguing and the plot so nicely complicated that as a reader, I kept second-guessing what I thought was really going on. Definitely recommended for crime novel lovers! ( )

Unfortunately, the only characters I liked in this novel were not the ones you'd expect. And it dragged..... The narrator, R. C. Bray, was just.....ok.

Mysteries are made in part by what the author doesn't tell us. In The Big Exit, David Carnoy lays out the mystery right at the start like an invitation into the spider's web. And unwittingly, I enter. So, a husband, murdered at home, and discovered by his wife. Prosaic enough, but, of course, nothing is supposedly what it seems. As the narrative progresses, the author parcels out twists and revelations that keep me reading, taking precious fiction time from other books on the queue. This annoyed me, but I stuck with it, hoping for more.

The author uses a style of presentation that is based almost entirely on dialogue and one of Carnoy's strengths as a novelist is the construction of his characters' conversations. Some of the characters do seem a little too voluble, like when the detective telling his main suspect details of the investigation, and when the doctor who speaks of a patient's hospitalization in full HIPAA disregard. Nonetheless, with this technique, the narrative does zip along. With way too many characters, and some of them seeming very alike, it was confusing for me. The narrator made quite a nice effort to keep everyone straight, but it didn't help me much. I spent quite a lot of the novel saying....."Who..?" That's not cool. And having taken me, the reader, far along the story and committed to reading on to the very end, I thought the author owed me a big reveal. But I saw it coming way ahead of the story, and this may have spoiled the book for me.

There is promise in this sophomore effort. I would have given this 4 stars if the second half was as interesting or compelling, and tight as the first half. Maybe I'll take a look at Carnoy's first novel for comparison. MAYBE. For now, I give this 3 stars. ( )

This book was absolutely fantastic! Fabulous character development-the characters were colorful but not over the top and were interesting throughout- and a super tight plot that was consistently interesting throughout. The only hiccup was there was one paragraph where the author was talking about "Hughes" being killed and the dead person's name was actually Ramos. Other than that this is a solid punch of a thriller/mystery. There are some cross over characters from his first novel Knife Music (?) so if you like to read books 100% in order than you may want to read that one first, not really necessary but just a suggestion. I have already bought his first one for my Nook and it is two down on my reading list. This is an author that I will eagerly anticipate reading again! ( )

Mysteries are one of the trickiest stories to tell, especially these days. Throw in technology, procedure and the fact we are basically spoon fed crime drama’s throughout popular media it makes it even harder to present a truly outstanding and gripping tale. David Carnoy has done it with this book. It was three-hundred plus pages of non stop, breath-holding action. The characters were easily embraced and so well fleshed out you felt like you were a fly on the wall in every scene.

It could easily be coined a dot.com murder mystery, except the murder mystery is just one thing going on in the book. It is the anchor for everything else going on, the aging detective, the depressed and confused trophy wife (who also happens to be the lead suspect in the cases ex-fiance). Oh and the lawyer who is introduced to us while trying to inject herself with hormones for invitro. There are many other characters who you fall in love with or at least love to despise, including the dead guy!

The story flows back and forth in time and place with such ease and no jarring effect I was never confused at what was going on! Well wait, that is not entirely true, I saw a few things coming but most of the time Carnoy had me hopping trying to figure out all the pieces in this huge puzzle which stretched from the Valley to the Bay.

One of my big pet peeves with story telling these days is name dropping tech devices or items which will end up dating the book later down the road. I few mystery writers have done that and it kills the read a decade from now. I do not think this will be the case with The Big Exit. Only in a San Fransisco based criminal mystery do we have cops where the station has gone green and they use iPads instead of paper and the statement will last as long as the book does. There were many items and procedures being used where are ground breaking in today’s crime solving and with the book centered around the founders of some huge dot.com and internet start up companies, it makes perfect sense to include them.

As I mentioned this is not just a story about a murder, this is a story about today’s world, how small it really is with the internet and social media. How anyone and everyone can make an impact with a few strokes of the keys and some clever marketing. But it has a price, just as everything does, the real question is can any of us, including all in the book, truly survive it? One didn’t and he was tagged in blood as a hack. His ex-partner from a decade before who claims he was innocent of a prior crime but still ending up serving almost a decade is now facing charges of murder to the only one who knew the truth about that night.

Extenuating Circumstances define so many folks lives in this book. Past crimes, marriages still on going instead of dissolving, a leave of absence and relationship, an extra glass of wine or two or three and staying on the job… Everyone has reasons and circumstances! It was such a great read and I definitely will be picking up David’s other novel, Knife Music. I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks they are hard pressed to be stumped with a mystery and who is not afraid to dive a bit deeper in the characters lives, as well as their own.

4 out of 5 floppy discs! ( )