Okay there are sexist 'comic' comment throughout which author appends to every mention of the narrator's partner - they seem always to have sex in the shower, and he is constantly observant of her rather-cliched sexiness; it is repetitive as is slow unfolding of the plot - a pretty-boy Hollywood star wakes up next to a local girl who has been murdered - Jake, our narrator, and his team of well-connected omniscient PI crew, solve things by questioning local suspects - well characterised, and some lethal twins ... setting are colourful and well done, and there is an overall very pleasant geniality that is attractive. Despite its repetitions and sexist stuff, it's adept and well set up altogether. I enjoyed it.

A-list is a delightful retro romp through New Orleans with all the classic mystery elements: a locked room mystery, movie stars, beautiful women, a mob boss, lots of booze, seedy underworld characters and a hapless hero PI. I hadn't read any of the Jake Longley books before but if this one is any indication, I will be reading many more.

Very interexting, but a little slow at first. I wanted to know more about the investigators -- in more depth. Good plot and you stay interested in what happens nexr.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.

This book was an easy read with mystery and lots of humour. The story was set in New Orleans which made me love it even more.

Wow, I feel like I just read a script mash-up from Magnum P.I., Murder She Wrote, and Hart to Hart. Let me return from the 80's to explain. There was the ex-athelete who is not the sharpest tool in the shed as the leading man. He is surrounded by the usual characters: gorgeous, brilliant girlfriend, wily mentor, muscle guy, helpful police, various movie stars and a connected bad guy with his goons. They all go to New Orleans, have a lot of sex, drive great cars very fast, eat at the best places, and solve a murder. I knew who the murderer was the minute they were introduced. Also, many editing problems. It was often difficult to discern who was speaking. The story was presented in sentences that stopped on one line in the middle of a sentence to begin again on the next line. it was like reading a dull story as poetry.

I had a heard time getting into this book and they way it switched things didn't work well for me.

For some reason it took me a little time to get into this book but when I did I enjoyed the story it was a little light hearted for a murder but the characters were interesting and now I know the characters involved would enjoy reading more of their capers would recommend this for a holiday read

DNF, not the book for me. Especially the opening sentence talking about the naked girl. Not the kind of stuff I'm into, but thanks for sending!

Mysteries and thrillers are my go to genre. This one was average. The characters were somewhat shallow and stereotypical and were an oddball assortment. The descriptions of the New Orleans setting were pretty good. Overall, a decent quick read.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to review this book.

Set in New Orleans and not like anything I have read before. Fascinating story with many twist and turns an exciting finale. I enjoyed the characters I met and look forward to meeting them again.

I didn't enjoy this book, but I finished it (yay). It was set in New Orleans, which was well described, but the characters were shallow and stereotypical and I guessed the identity of the murderer far too soon. The clues were really obvious. The ogling and sex were overdone. Not my kind of mystery, and I'm very tolerant.

“A-List” by D.P. Lyle features an odd assortment of characters who call the Gulf Coast home. Jake Longly is an ex-baseball player who runs Captain Rocky’s Surf and Turf, while his father Ray runs a P. I. firm, Longly Investigations. Jake and his friends travel to New Orleans at the request of a friend when an A-list actor, star of the “Space Quest” movies gets arrested for the murder of a local girl found strangled in his bed. This celebrity status means damage control and cover up right from the start. Lies, lies, and more lies are entangled so much that the truth is hard to find.

The book is primarily written as Jake’s first person narrative so the narrative is mostly dialogue driven. He paints a laid-back, colorful picture of New Orleans “Soon we were out over Lake Pontchartrain, where the wind whipped the water into foam and some of the waves looked as if they might wash over the road.” Comic relief abounds as they try to move the investigation along. “What are you doing? Negotiating the Louisiana Purchase? And when all else fails, call upon the master of mystery “All I’m saying is that this might be an Agatha Christie locked room case. There might be someone else involved.”

“A-List” was not a nail-biting thriller, but was a quick, fun book to read, considering there was a murder after all. The characters are light-hearted and funny, and no one takes things too seriously. I received a copy of “A-List” from Oceanview Publishing, D. P. Lyle, and NetGalley to review. It was an entertaining book, and I enjoyed reading it.

Set in raffish yet enchanting New Orleans, this mystery gets tough, beautiful, kick-boxing and fast driving Nicole and her more laid back ex-ballplayer partner Jake moving when Nicole’s Hollywood producer uncle begs for help. It seems his big star in a successful science fiction franchise woke up with the king of hangovers, with a strangled girl next to him. Of course he is under arrest, and the production is shut down, bleeding money.

Nicole, Jake, and Jake’s tough P.I. dad Ray (along with his gigantic computer wizard Pancake) travel to New Orleans, where they get mixed up in the gangster world, as they work alongside New Orleans police to solve the mystery.

Lyle paints the city in vivid colors—our characters down more alcohol than I’ve had in the last thirty years—as they romp in the bedroom by night and by day comb for clues among the Hollywood people and the gangland people. Sometimes it’s not clear which ones live in the weirder alternate universe.

This seems to be the second of a series, but it’s easy to pick up the gist of what’s gone on before. And after having read mainly female-written mysteries for the last several years, it was interesting to read one written by a man. His descriptions of alpha Nicole reminds me of the lingering descriptions of ultra-fit and handsome guys in romantic pairings written by females. This is not a creeb. Nicole is written as smart, capable, and very much the dominant partner of the team. That’s probably why I enjoyed Jake’s rueful self-awareness of his own capabilities while appreciating her stellar attributes.

I figured out the mystery fairly early on, but it was fun to see how it played out, and what happened to the various characters.

A thoroughly engrossing beach read. I’ll be on the watch for more of this series—I really like crime-fighting pairs, and Jake and Nicole were fun to follow.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley.

Jake Longly and Nicole Jemison are private investigators and we follow their story as they get a new case.

Set in New Orleans, a fun and food-filled, liquor-flowing tale gets underway when the Nicole receives a phone call from her uncle Charles, a Hollywood movie producer/director, asking for both Jake’s and her help in the investigation of a murdered young woman inside of a Big Easy five-star hotel room.

The young woman, Kristy Guidry, and Ford have had intimate relations in Ford’s room and when the Hollywood royal awakes the next day to find Guidry laying next to him, then all hell suddenly breaks loose, after the girl’s uncle, Tony Guidry wants his niece's murder avenged.

In my personal opinion writing was captivating but it could have been executed a little bit better, the narrative is better suited for the action/adventure/crime/mystery genres than it is for the thriller genre. But it is also important to state this was a fun read.

I had no idea this book is a sequel but this book can stand on its own without having read the prequel to this.

The story is told in a first person POV and the way it is being narrated by Jake Longly, sounds like he is a high schooler and somewhat like he is writing a diary.

I have to admit, it had a slow start. I don't like how the dialogues are constructed and there are many redundant ideas that it made me feel like I've just started the book even when I was already 200 plus pages in.

I tried liking A List and around 65 percent into the book, I thought I might actually enjoy it but it was only for a few pages and I was bored again. 80% into the book and things finally got interesting.

I wasn't intrigued enough to want to know who killed Kristi and I was tempted to not finish the book but I'm not a quitter especially when it comes to reading so I finished it. It was obvious to me who killed Kristi and the ending didn't feel like an ending because it wasn't stated what happened to the characters after finding out the killer. It just ended with the investigators telling Kirk who killed Kristi and that he is innocent. Maybe I'll find out in the sequel to this.

I'm sure there are people who might enjoy DP Lyle's writing style or the plot or the characters in the story but it just didn't do for me.

Overall, I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

A nice easy read with humor, mystery and a few twists and turns. Perfect beach read!

A-list featured interesting characters, a plot which moved along nicely, a Big Easy New Orleans that I don't read about everyday, and a writing style which was brisk, interesting, and compelling. I want to read more about the cops, criminals, and private investigators (official and non) that populate this murder mystery.

Jake Longly and Nicole Jemison are the Rick Castle and Kate Beckett of private investigators.

Jake Longly and Nicole Jemison are the Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperance Brennan of private investigators.

Jake Longly and Nicole Jemison are the Ryan Booth and Alex Parrish of private investigators.

. . .Catch my drift?

And if you enjoy watching those fictive, made-for-tv characters—zany as they are—by way of any of the respective dramas on which they feature, then you will indeed enjoy D.P. Lyle’s impending mystery thriller, A-List.

Set in the ever effervescent New Orleans—that’s N’awlins to us non-natives—the fun and food-filled, liquor-flowing tale gets underway when the alpha female Nicole receives a phone call from her uncle Charles Balfour, a big shot Hollywood movie producer/director, asking for both Jake’s and her help in the investigation of a murdered young woman inside of a Big Easy five-star hotel room—which just so happens to involve a world-famous, and exceptionally good-looking, albeit whorish, movie star named Kirk Ford.

The young woman, Kristy Guidry, and Ford have had intimate relations in Ford’s room, of course, and when the Hollywood royal awakes the next day to find Guidry laying next to him, literally dead to the world, all hell suddenly breaks loose, especially after the girl’s uncle, Tony Guidry—a mob boss of both local and long distance influence—learns that his beloved niece, whom he, by the way, idolizes nearly to the extreme of perversity, has been killed. Tony suspects pretty boy Kirk. And Tony, the top Don of the Southern Regions, vows deadly retribution.

. . .He wants his neice’s murder avenged. And he wants his neice’s murder avenged now.

Enter a foursome that even the Master of the Crime Caper himself, the same being Carl Hiaasen, would get a kick out of: Ray Longly, founder of Longly Investigations. He’s quite a guy. And he’s also Jake’s father; the big and extra beefy Tommy “Pancake” Jeffers, Ray’s partner and a menacing red head who can pack a hefty punch—on both criminals and food; Nicole Jemison, a ridiculously beautiful—however domineering—P.I. whose only flaw is her tendency to forget that she entered the world from her mother’s womb equipped with a clitoris, vulva, and vaginal cavity, and not with a penis, scrotum, and testicles; and of course there’s our main protagonist, Jake Longly, formerly famous MLB pitcher turned P.I./bar owner and Nicole’s love interest.

. . .Added to this badass, though wacky, quartet of star characters are a supporting cast just as lovable, even if downright scandalous: Kirk Ford, screen idol and one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymaking stars; Tegan and Tara James, gorgeous “identical” twin actresses and Kirk’s sisterish (Is that a word?) co-stars who, like their “big brother” Kirk, are in N’awlins shooting the latest installment of a major multi-billion dollar blockbuster franchise (Space Quest) that the trio have starred in together since its inception; Marty Ebersole, director of Space Quest, who’s all about protecting his interests; and Troy Doucet, NOPD detective assigned to the Guidry murder case, and who, in turn, works with Ray, Pancake, Jake, and Nicole to crack it.

. . .Who killed Kristy Guidry? And why? What had been his or her motive?

A small group of bit players and extras—including the two brothers of the deceased, Kevin and Robert—round out this adventurous mystery. And it is one that is sure to hold your interest as it had mine.

The Big Easy floweth with plenty of gumbo and rice, oyster po’boys, crawfish étouffée, jalepeño cornbread, and of course, liquor, as our exceptional team of P.I.s work both the French Quarter and the gator-infested swamps to find a killer—at least before the Mafiosi do.

Great work of fiction by D.P. Lyle. And if I may say as much, A-List is to me not so much of a thriller as it is a murder mystery. In fact, the narrative is better suited for the action/adventure/crime/mystery genres than it is for the thriller genre. Nevertheless, it was an amusing and hilarious read.

Here’s another thing. Though I do recommend A-List, readers must be informed that the same is a “true-to-form murder mystery.” You won’t find out who killed Kristy Guidry (and why) until the the book is two to three blinks away from its ending.
. . .Okay that may be a bit of an exaggeration, as the figure of speech was only used here to stress a point. But because A-List is overall a genuinely entertaining read, the reader should not expect to bore.

I applaud D.P. Lyle for a work well-penned, but because of the stretch of waiting that it took to get the the heart valve of the mystery, I’m inclined to settle this particular Jake Longly adventure with a four star rating.

• It is my kindly pleasure to thank Oceanview Publishing, as well as NetGalley, for the advanced copy of “A-List,” in exchange for my honest review.

Analysis of “A-List” by D.P. Lyle is courtesy of Reviews by Cat Ellington: https://catellingtonblog.wordpress.com

Date of Review: Thursday, June 15, 2017

Great book. I loved Jake and Nicole and who can resist a book set in NOLA?? Really enjoyed it