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by James R. Jacobson
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by Sandra Orienti
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by (Editor: Blue Shield)
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by Kevin Munroe, Dave Wilkins (Illustrator: Sean Galloway) (Illustrator: Tony Washington)
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by John D. Macdonald
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by John Wesley Howard
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Yellow Bird
by Rick Boyer
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Fawcett (1992-07-20)
ISBN: 0804110360
EAN: 9780804110365
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Mass Market Paperback
Release Date: 1992-07-20
SKU: mon0000045795
Condition: Good
Comments: Ex-library Book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A Doc Adams Mystery.
Doc's old medical school chum and one-time drinking buddy, Jonathan Randolph, calls up one cold January night to invite Doc to pay him a visit on Cape Cod. Not long after the awkward reunion, Doc's presence is once again requested -- at an autopsy. A man has been found shot to death next door to where Doc and Jonathan met. Doc immediately recognizes the dead man as George Brenner, another friend from the past. And Randolph has disappeared without a trace. Is Doc's old friend the murderer . . . or the next victim?
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Customer Reviews
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A disaster for Doc Adams fans
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-02-04
I have recently started to read all of the Doc Adams books. For some reason I have found myself never really giving any of them a great review, but I am always attracted to the narrative that Boyer creates and am eager to read more in the hopes of finding the potential of the author realized. I think that a perfect Adams book would be similar to the late work of Charles Willeford. I say this because the way that Boyers characters twist and turn and the story often fragments off on tangents is quintessential Willeford. In my book, this is high praise.
Yellow Bird is the least enjoyable of the Boyer books I have read thus far. Its hard to find a place to start with my be-moaning. What really stuck out for me was the insensitive un-PC nature of Boyer that was sort of shocking. I kept thinking of old Hollywood movies that might have an African American as a bit player. Recently I watched an old Bob Hope movie where he found himself in a haunted house in Cuba. In the movie was a stereo-typical black man who was fearful and goofy. It kind of made me sick to watch. Boyer did not portray African Americans in such a light here, but they were put into rolls that were be-meaning. Not only that but Boyer type-cast gays, women, lower-classes, rich folk, every category into rolls that seemed out dated and were hard to swallow.
Perhaps most off putting here was the story itself. Doc Adams has been in just wayyyy too many scrapes for a small town dental surgeon. Here Boyer gets way too clever for his own good. He devises a new sort of Christie locked door scenario by having Adams and his wife on a beach where they just happen to hear the gun shot that kills an old acquaintance. Adams just happens to be called in to do dental work on a corpse weeks later and just happens to find out that it is an old friend of his. The plausibility of the murder and Adams' involvement was so complex that it was hard to see all the chips falling into place. I kept reading just to see how Boyer would wrap this up, but instead of getting to the meat of things, he elaborately goes into great detail over such non-essential matters as what the characters are having for lunch or dinner, or the next days lunch, and dinner again. The over abundance of meal descriptions reminded me of one of Stuart Woods' more recent books where his character has dinner at his favorite restaurant every other chapter.
I only give this book two stars because I like Boyer and the series is good enough to support this sub-standard installment. It should never have been published.
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