Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Action/Thriller Publisher: Amazon Type: Fiction Pages: 224 Copyright: Sept. 15, 2013 Price: $3.99 (eBook) Five Quickies for Roger and Suzanne is an anthology of shorter stories featuring characters from the popular South American mystery series of novels, including Roger’s first case and how Suzanne and Roger first meet. In this novel-length collection, Roger and Suzanne solve cases in Salta, Argentina; Fortaleza, Brazil; and Los Angeles, California in a novella, a novelette, and three short stories---five quickies.  Three obvious murder victims, two additional dead bodies, and a mysterious dog add spice to these stories.  The five stories give you five times as many chances to see if you can deduce whodunit before Roger and Suzanne do.  Free from Kindle Unlimited. Excerpt It was a sunny day in November, one of those days the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce tries to convince tourists is typical of our weather all year round. I was sitting at my desk waiting for a client to walk in and hire me. Sitting at the same desk for a couple of days, I was getting bored with nothing much to do. It had been a good year for me and I’d been working hard until the end of last week. That meant I was sitting on a nice bank balance and could afford to be without a client or a job for a while longer. On the other hand, I don’t particularly enjoy doing nothing. That made me think about taking the rest of the afternoon off and making a quick trip over to Hollywood to work out at the new Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym I’d seen written up in the local news section of the L.A. Times. A moment later the decision was taken out of my hands. There was an assertive rap on the door, and she walked in. About 5’8”, on the good side of 30 years old, lean athletic body, Scandanavian looking face, long blond hair, and an aura of success and good breeding. Wearing $300 jeans and Bruno Magli heels, her look was casual but at the same time Los Angeles sophisticated. An I.D.-type security key card from UCLA hung on a thin strap around her neck. Maybe it was pheromones, maybe it was just how beautiful she was, but somewhere deep in my mind a little voice was shouting, “Wow, this could be the one for you!” I introduced myself and made a gesture; she sat on the client chair facing my desk, crossed her long legs, and leaned forward. There was a pause while she decided what to say. I could read the letters on my door backwards; they still said “Roger Bowman Investigations”. Glancing around the office, I saw once again the desk with a computer monitor on top, the computer tower and a laser printer under the desk, the client chair in front, and a couple of file cabinets against the wall. The opposite wall featured a large window with a great view of the smog hiding the Tehachapi Mountains to the north, and a sprinkling of my various martial arts competition trophies on shelves on the walls, an overall image far less elegant than my potential new client. The voice was as attractive as she was. “Hello. I assume you’re Roger Bowman,” she said. “Yes, I am,” seemed to be the right answer. She looked straight at me. No fear, mild concern. “My name is Suzanne Foster.” “What can I do to help you, Ms. Foster?” “I’m being followed,” she told me calmly, “And there seem to be at least two people taking turns doing the following. This has gone on for more than a week that I’m aware of, and I don’t know for how long before that until I realized I was seeing the same two men behind me over and over.” I thought about her answer for a few seconds. It’s never a bad idea to appear thoughtful at this stage of an interview with a potential new client. “Do you have any idea why someone would want to have you followed?” She answered readily and without hesitation. “There’s no reason on Earth why anybody would be following me because of something I did or didn’t do. It seems more likely that it must be related to my father’s murder last month. I can’t think of any reason somebody would want to kill my father, but someone did. The police are assuming that it was a random killing---a robbery that went bad---and not looking very hard for who did it any more. I want to hire you to find out who did it and why, and to bring his killer to justice. And to find out who’s following me, and why, and do something to make it stop.” She sat back in the client’s chair and waited for me to answer.

Well worth a read
The author presents us with five short stories, with detective Roger Bowman solving the mystery in each of the stories. I have read a lot of Gerald Last’s books before so I am pretty much a fan of the laid-back style that is not too taxing on the brain. There is, as usual, a South American vibe, with good character development and a laid-back style.
You can see that this is one of the earlier works of the author and as such, Mr. Last is developing his individual writing and character development style into what it becomes in later books. The dog client gets my vote as the best of the five, but there is some interesting plot development here, which include a Brazilian martial arts expert. These books are well worth a read, even if it is just to see how the character of Roger came into existence. Great stuff.

Nice visit with old friends
I'm generally not much of a short story/novella fan but this collection involving 'old friends' from previous books was definitely entertaining.

One 're-write' which I was glad to revisit and the very short story, The Dog with No Name, was actually my personal favorite ... a delightful gem.

Entertaining enough for a full-length novel
Although a couple of the stories seem out of chronological order because of events mentioned in them, these are very entertaining. Narrated by Roger, a good many take place in South America and there's plenty of info on the food and culture. Characters from various stories re-appear in others so there's some continuity. I'd like to read a full-length novel about these two.