Reduced Circumstances

Meeting Frank Cole, a bankrupt techie, trying to evade his creditors while working as a fact checker and taxi dispatcher, was like meeting a neighbor. Cole is so absolutely real in his doubts, fears, and life issues that I couldn't help but route (no pun intended)for him from the opening sentence.
Equally real were his fellow taxi drivers. I kept expecting the description of the owner to match that of Danny DaVito , but it didn't. The remaining characters were as diverse and interesting as could possibly be brought together.
The Florida Panhandle comes to life in O'Neil's descriptions of not only the weather but the attitudes of various characters. Cole lives in Exile, Fla. which is an effective double meaning if there ever was one.
And then there is the plot!! Never before have I seen the the idea of using a number of matrices to line up clues and figure out what is happening. But, it made perfect sense - it wasn't perfectly foolproof but certainly helped. Using both insightful and less than motivated police officers kept the book evenly paced.
O'Neil has three books in this series about Frank Cole. "Reduced Circumstances" is the second. As soon as I finished I was off to the Thompson Public Library to take our "Murder in Exile" which should indicate how much I enjoyed this book. "Murder in Exile" was an excellent mechanism to use to get thoroughly educated about Cole's background and issues as well as meet some of the ongoing characters. I plan to move on to the third book as soon as time allows.
O'Neil is a Massachusetts native, a graduate of West Point with a masters in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. He won the St. Martin's Press "Malice Domestic" Writing Competition in 2005. In addition to the Frank Cole series he has published two anthologies.