Fatal Gamble
By J.P. O’Donnell

This free book was received from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review.

When her husband, a doctor is murdered, the widow hires a Boston Private investigator Daniel Gallagher to give her some answers to her questions. He sets out in an organized plan and moves from clue to clue to find out that twenty years ago, a partnership was formed to construct a medical office center in Massachusetts. Lots of shady dealings that make the group of doctors tons of money.

As he grows closer to the real truth, Gallagher feels the growing pressure from outside influences to keep the secrets buried.

The author does a very good job of creating a face paced mystery by developing believable characters and keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Pick up this debut book of JP O’Donnell and take a fast ride of adventure. ( )

I was extremely pleased with this book. It was an easy read and kept me interested. It is very straightforward and got to the point. There was no rambling and over-describing every scene. It is easy for me to lose interest in a book with too much going on, especially since I have small children vying for my attention too. It was easy for me to read this book in between my other household duties, while waiting at the dr.s office, etc. I also loved the story line. Corruption in politics? Not far-fetched at all. Loved it!! ( )

Murder mystery with surprising twists and turns involving gambling, real estate, Washington insiders and physicians. A good read. ( )

I won this book thru LT and I have absolutely enjoyed reading it. I have never read anything quite like this and found I could not put this book down. I really liked the main character, Daniel Gallagher, aka Gallagher. He is unlike any character I have read in a book before and he is a Private Eye, who used to work for the police force, and he has a hard time dealing with authority.
The book setting takes place in Bedford, Massachusetts and centers upon a string of murders involving Doctors that participated in a real estate partnership twenty years ago. Gallagher is hired by one of the widows, Suzanne Becker who wants to uncover the truth behind her husband’s murder. The further along in the investigation Gallagher goes, the more he uncovers and he himself becomes a target. With lots of explosive action and political corruption, this book literally keeps you on your toes.
I think fans of John Grisham can appreciate this book. It is a very quick read and the author is very descriptive in his writing and he adds his own background in clinical practice for the characters in this book. I will definitely be looking for other works by this author. ( )

“Fatal Gamble” by JP O’Donnell was given to me through the good and generous offices of Paula at Author Marketing Experts, and I’m going to take this opportunity to thank her for it. “Fatal Gamble” is a straightforward thriller in which an intrepid private detective survives to ferret out the evil-doers and saves his pretty girlfriend in the process. But it’s an engrossing trip to get to that point.
Measured against the classic whodunit criteria – do I care if the bad guys get caught; am I impressed by the hero’s resourcefulness; is there enough mystery and novelty in the crimes committed – this story succeeds very well. In the climactic moment, when the safety of our detective Gallagher and his girlfriend/fiancée is direly threatened, I really got sweaty palms, and my pulse became quite rapid indeed.
Gallagher is a former Boston cop who now plies his trade as a PI, and when he’s called in by the confused and frightened widow of a newly-murdered pediatrician, he has no inkling that he’s stumbled into a conspiracy involving real estate scams, big-money politics, murder, and corruption in very high places. It’s a very effective yarn, and does that necessary-but-hardly-easy thing: it involves our emotions.
“Fatal Gamble” is, as I say, a straightforward thriller – not so much a mystery, because we know only too well who the heavies are. Dr. O’Donnell could have used the teensiest bit of editing in those few places where unadorned descriptions of action or thought-processes takes too many words. This is not a story where the language soars and entertains on its own, but then, which mystery/thriller is? If you’ve a yen for an effective thriller where the hero is highly sympathetic, the secondary characters drawn with full shading, and the corrupt-in-high-places fall hard, go for “Fatal Gamble.”

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2010/07/fatal-gamble-by-jp-odonnell.html ( )