The Lesson Plan (Audible Audio Edition) GJ Prager Books
Download As PDF : The Lesson Plan (Audible Audio Edition) GJ Prager Books
Times are tough in LA, and Robert Klayman, substitute high school teacher, attempts to solve his money woes along with a midlife crisis by trying on a new career He finds a job moonlighting as a private detective.
He's in over his head and soon enough stumbles upon a criminal drug ring working out of the Los Angeles Unified School District. His efforts and schemes to find the murderer of a young teacher take him on a spine-tingling journey through the violent netherworld of private detection.
From the streets of L.A. to the gaudy casinos of the Vegas strip, and to surreal, ghostly Arizona landscapes, Klayman finally redeems himself but at a price he never could imagine.
The Lesson Plan (Audible Audio Edition) GJ Prager Books
I love mysteries and when I read one I don't want a slutty 3rd rate romance novel. I found the character depressing and shallow; so, I supposed the author had to infuse some disjointed none story related sleazy sex hook up to add to the word count and appeal to a "broader" market. A scene that only the most base of people would find entertaining. I gave my Kindle book till 22% and I couldn't even see the author's fish much less have the hook set. It lost me. I gave up. The author, in real life, teaches at a high school: Maybe he wants his students who read this book (and very one will) see how hip he is. I wish we could make mystery writers (even aspiring writers) take a pledge to make their books clever, intriguing, and entertaining. Something I can enjoy and recommend it to my high school daughter. Is it a good mystery? I don't know. Maybe after his first bungling episodes he does get into an interesting mystery. $7.99? No. $1.99? Maybe. I'd wait if I were you.Product details
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The Lesson Plan (Audible Audio Edition) GJ Prager Books Reviews
Plot
Robert Klayman is a Los Angeles substitute teacher by day and a budding private investigator by...well, any day he's not teaching. He wants so much to be a P.I. First up, tailing a woman. When that ends in near death, he turns back to teaching. Only to meet another sub, who offers him what seems to be a simple case hand over some items to her son in Arizona. But the case is not so simple and Klayman is fleeing for his life and looking for answers.
So, we have a first-timer P.I. story. Well, every P.I. had to start somewhere. As for the plot, well, it was a little disjointed at times and connections were made that I didn't catch.
Characters
Robert Klayman Around 40, substitute teacher and amateur P.I., drives an '83 Honda, owns a dog
Cal P.I.
Sheila Farelly Around 40, dirty blonde, divorced with a son, owns a cat, drives a black Mercedes
Maria Castro 17, attractive
No description of Robert. Robert's relationship with Maria is downright creepy and a turnoff. Didn't get too much description of some of the other players, Cal and Zeke.
Dialogue
Okay for voices. Maria's came through. Some B-movie bad guy lines near the end.
Writing
This is where the problems lie. First off there was unnecessary profanity and several racial slurs. Second-and I became aware of this though about halfway through Robert's dog was spoken about a lot. Good buddy, I understand, but what breed of dog is Homer (the dog's name? This was never mentioned. I gather he was large-ish, furry, and built for the Arctic. I thought, a-ha, Husky. But then he is mentioned as being colored orange. Golden Retriever? I don't know but when I found myself thinking more about the dog than the actual plot, it became a problem.
Part of the reason for this is because the author spends too much time on the teaching part of Klayman's life and not enough on the detective stuff. I realize that a lot of the crime involves the teaching side, but about 1/3 of the book goes by before he's given the major case. Yes, he has a case at the beginning (that connects up in time), but the next one doesn't come along till much later. Then nearly half the book goes by before there's any real action, meaning danger. Again, there was some at the beginning, but it was done and gone pretty quick.
Again, I must reiterate the relationship between Robert and Maria. A sub-teacher should know better and because of this I found Robert not likeable, especially since he wants so much to be a good detective.
Sheila's last name is spelled differently in two chapters.
Not believable parts
- Maria allowed in a Vegas casino and allowed to gamble.
- when Robert meets Sheila, she hands him a business card. In a later meeting, he asks her name. Wouldn't her card have her name?
- I cannot believe that after Robert flees Arizona, leaving his car, that the police didn't find the car and discover its owner before Robert retrieves it. I can maybe believe the police didn't find a weapon he tossed, but the car should have been found, especially since there was a BOLO on him and his car.
- during a scene where Robert is robbed, his dog has been growling low before, but when the action starts, the dog does nothing?
- the last chapter was completely not believable. The cops show up to arrest Robert for attempted murder. They're not going to wait outside while Robert puts on his pants. They are also not going to act and talk like they did. This is a serious crime and they're joking around.
Again, I missed the connections Robert apparently caught to put the case together. Maybe it was my thinking about the dog too much or catching some of the mistakes. Whatever the reason, the weakness of the writing brought this, at first down to camo, but after the last chapter went over the line, I had to drop the rank to
Orange Belt
G.J. Prager is a name to watch. THE LESSON PLAN may be his first novel but it is so successfully written that it suggests we have a new burgeoning talent among us! On the surface this novel seems to be a first person narrated story shared by a frustrated Robert Klayman who is unemployed, living from paycheck to paycheck by serving as a substitute teacher in Santa Monica, California to pay the rent in a shambles of an apartment he shares with his faithful cohort dog Homer, unattached to a significant other and ever obsessed with physical attractions/encounters, whose dream it is to become a Private Investigator. But there is so much more.
At story's beginning Klayman is working an assignment for one detective Cal Keller - following a blonde woman who Klayman succeeds in tracing only to be conked out when he discovers her dead, bloody body. Cal dismisses Klayman for a botched case forcing Klayman to continue his substitute of a life as an oncall teacher replacement. But Klayman's school jobs happen to introduce him to a fellow substitute teacher Sheila with whom he not only finally relates but also beds, only to be asked by the woman to drive to Arizona to deliver a package to her son who has been taken from her by her ex-husband. This leads Klayman into a quagmire of new problems - drugs, a shooting, being chased by police - until he escapes back to Santa Monica and the presumed boring quiet of his substitute life only to have eyes for a voluptuous student Maria who he involves in his pursuing a discovery that there is a drug ring active in the school system. It is this back and forth slamming from the boring life of a substitute teacher enhanced or compounded with an almost inadvertent entry in the role of a PI that drives this little novel home.
Yes, this is a solid and well constructed story that once started makes the reader stay with it until the end (even an all-nighter in this reader's case!). But what the too brief synopsis does not reveal is a writer who happens to be one of the best to describe the Southern California life - weather, traffic on the freeway, loose livers, drugs and other digressions, and the apparent inability to follow a dream successfully. In the author's words 'Life can play clever tricks on us mortals who wait desperately for dreams to come true, realizing only too late that it's an end game and much too short at that. Reaching middle age without accumulating a formidable bank account can leave a man bitter and emasculated, ruminating on every lost opportunity that ever came his way. Nothing I ever did made me money; lady luck's a discriminating bitch that won't invite just anyone up to her room.' And in addition to be a painter of landscape and figurative canvases as well as anyone writing today he maintains an extraordinarily fine-tuned sense of humor, no matter how desperate a situation he is describing. Readers will attach themselves to this social malaprop and see the madness of the world through his distorted vision, identifying with those contemporary frustrations and maladjustments he somehow survives, and stand and root for him all the way there is a dollop of Robert Klayman in each of us - at least in Southern California.
Think of his circle Christopher Isherwood, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Matt Groening, Evelyn Waugh - and add a comedy vein of gold. Welcome G.J.Prager! And watch for his new book due soon SEASONED TO KILL. Grady Harp, August 16
Terrible. Don't waste your time. Read Simenon, instead. Glad I didn't pay for it; just deleted it from my device. Good riddance..
I love mysteries and when I read one I don't want a slutty 3rd rate romance novel. I found the character depressing and shallow; so, I supposed the author had to infuse some disjointed none story related sleazy sex hook up to add to the word count and appeal to a "broader" market. A scene that only the most base of people would find entertaining. I gave my book till 22% and I couldn't even see the author's fish much less have the hook set. It lost me. I gave up. The author, in real life, teaches at a high school Maybe he wants his students who read this book (and very one will) see how hip he is. I wish we could make mystery writers (even aspiring writers) take a pledge to make their books clever, intriguing, and entertaining. Something I can enjoy and recommend it to my high school daughter. Is it a good mystery? I don't know. Maybe after his first bungling episodes he does get into an interesting mystery. $7.99? No. $1.99? Maybe. I'd wait if I were you.
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