Review Of The Morris Men

It’s a mere 4 and 1/2 hours since my last post. I promised to read The Morris Men and give you a review.

Keeping my promise to read it was easy, giving you a review of such a fine piece of work will be harder.

I started reading and stopped twice before finishing. Once to eat the lunch that my wife fixed for me and the other time was to create the post previous to this one. More or less, I read it in 4 hours, without hardly having put it down. It’s that good.

From the Prologue, that drew me in with it’s details about building golf clubs circa 1874, I learned about the clubmaker that built ” The Trophy “. As a clubmaker myself, having built dozens of irons and woods for friends, I could sympathize with his dedication to his craft and his long days and nights. I have to bow to his skills, as he used tools with which I’m not acquainted and labored with far more physical effort in that day.

I was then transported to 1931 and met a couple of old ” gentlemen ” that were central to this story and had far more depth, which I didn’t find til the last couple of pages, than I could have ever imagined. One of them was even more of a scoundrel that I could have ever guessed.

The twists that took place in the first 3 chapters were so skillfully woven that I would have believed you if you had told me it had been written by one of the old masters of literature. The author, Stephen E. Mitchell, is a wordsmith to be reckoned with and does a great job of keeping the story moving quickly enough to keep you reading, yet always had a twist or turn waiting that you don’t see coming.

Throughout the story, you’ll find yourself quickly identifying with the central characters and wanting some to get their ” just deserts ” and wanting others to come out on top. Once it get’s to some ” good-versus-evil ” periods and I was easily made to choose sides.

The middle chapters are noteworthy for filling out the details, which are craftily woven and never seem to be there just to fill space. The care with which the author moves us from then-to-now-to-then-to-now is evident in how careful he is to never overload our believability detectors.

The ” solicitors ” in this story, Bainbridge & Bainbridge ” are sturdy enough to stand by themselves and I hope the author finds a way to use them more in the future.

The ending was not predictable and leaves me wanting to order the next in the series right now. Don’t all the good one’s do that to you ?

If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind golf mystery novel, look no further. I’ve never read a book like this before, but now I’m wanting more to read. I love to read about golf have a desire to be transported somewhere else while watching a story unfold that I would never be able to witness in real life.

The mental pictures created by the author while one of my favorite characters was touring France were worth the cost of admission, so to speak.

Click the link above to be transported to the authors site. He’s looking for an American litery agent and/or publisher. Right now you can only get the book from Amazon.uk, but if you need a copy and can’t find it, shoot me an email and I’ll do my best to see to it that you get a copy.

If you’re a literary agent or publisher with offices in America, get in touch with Stephen before someone else does.

Thanks, Stephen, for an afternoon of sheer enjoyment and a reason to do some ” research “, while lying on my couch.