Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: April 21, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 1001867
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The overwhelming response to Live Bait proved P. J. Tracy's second novel was no fluke. The Chicago Tribune said it best: 'Tracy is a writer who can walk that thin line between humour and serious crime without sacrificing the needs of either side.' For fans craving electric suspense, high-energy banter, and intricate plotting, the wait is over: Dead Run has arrived.
Monkeewrench founders Grace MacBride and Annie Belinsky, along with Deputy Sharon Mueller, are driving from Minneapolis to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where they believe a new serial killer is just warming up, when their car breaks down, deep in the northern woods, far away from civilization and cell towers. A walk through the forest leads them to the crossroads town of Four Corners, where they had hoped to find a landline and a mechanic, but instead find . . . absolutely nothing.
Something terrible has happened in Four Corners, and the complete absence of life and severed phone lines in every building make it impossible to get help. Grace, her senses honed by a lifetime of justifiable paranoia, sees the sinister in every detail, and her intuition barely saves all three of them when they witness a horrifying double murder. Grace, Annie, and Sharon are suddenly running for their lives, while the rest of the Monkeewrench crew, along with Minneapolis cops Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, strike out on a blind search to find them.
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Rated by buyers 
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As a devoted new fan to the series, I picked up this book almost as soon as I finished the very first one. This book takes a bit of a detour from the previously plausible last 2 books & goes for a bit of an outlandish spin. It doesn't fit well with the rest of the series & to be honest, this book is a bit dull in comparison with the other two. It's not a good starting point for anyone looking to get into the series, even though this book can stand alone.
That being said, this book is still fun to read if you are willing to slog through the slow bits. The book focuses around Grace, Annie, & another female character as they stumble onto a town eerily empty of all of it's citizens. They have to stay one step beyond the terrorist faction that's determined to eradicate anyone that knows of their whereabouts.
My main criticism is that so many of the elements seem so far fetched. Grace's team always seems to have some near-magical computer invention that can save the day. The terrorists are instantly able to detect that Grace & her friends are in the town. Grace's dog instantly goes from a regular abused mutt to a super sniffer. However the P.J. Tracy team manage to make it entertaining. I just don't think that anyone not previously into the series would like it as much, though.
Rated by buyers -
This was my very first book by P.J. Tracy and I found it to be just OK. There wasn't anything exceptionally great about it. I did have a problem, however, with the amount of characters in there. It was mind boggling at times. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone.
Rated by buyers -
Our friends from Monkeewrench are back for the third time: oversized biker/renaissance man Harley, plus-sized sexpot Annie, Spandex-clad beanpole Roadrunner, and paranoid beauty Grace are once again preparing to donate their crime-solving software to another law enforcement agency, this time in Green Bay. Grace, Annie, and Sharon, a Wisconsin deputy/FBI agent they worked with on their last adventure, decide to take a road trip to northern Wisconsin to deliver the software. It's August, so it's a good time for the three women to take a meandering trip through Wisconsin...except for a little accident that occurs in the northern region where their side trip takes them, and the fact that their cell phones won't work.
In a northern Wisconsin county, a diver discovers three dead bodies who were all shot execution-style, and when the bodies are sent to the morgue, the feds immediately step in and take them. Meanwhile, in the itty-bitty town of Four Corners, which only has two since a fire, an accident with a milk truck occurs, so that by the time Grace, Annie, and Sharon hoof it in when Grace's Range Rover breaks down, the town is deserted. There doesn't seem to even be so much as a mosquito hanging out in Four Corners, even though the town shows signs of recent occupation. When Grace discovers all the phone lines have been cut, she knows they're all in trouble, and the three women go into hiding for their lives. They are on the run from an organized group of paramilitary men on some kind of mission, and it is only Grace's highly-honed paranoia that saves them. They have to survive the night and somehow escape from Four Corners the following day so they can warn the world about what is about to happen. When the women don't turn up in Green Bay on time, the rest of the Monkeewrench crew and a couple of cops from Minneapolis decide to hop in the Monkeewrench RV and head for Wisconsin to find out what has happened.
This book excels at building tension and keeping the story going. The writers did a great job of weaving intrigue, making the reader wonder if Grace, Annie, and Sharon have stumbled across a big government secret, or possibly something even darker. I had to keep reading just so I would know what was going on in Four Corners and who was responsible.
While I give the book high marks for holding my interest in the story, it loses a few points with the characters. Everyone in this book and everything they do is terribly dramatic. Nobody just gets up or goes off and does something; if they are bothering to do it at all, it is because they are the best person in the world at it and everyone else holds them in awe. Younger readers or perhaps simply overly-dramatic people might find it enjoyable, but I found it distracting. It's a little hard to like characters when nearly everything they do or say makes me roll my eyes. Sexism is big in this book, too, which I just plain don't care for. While some of it was done on purpose to show the readers how backwards people are in the sticks, it was prevalent in every part of the book. Note to authors: Not ALL women stop every 5 minutes on road trips or will go 50 miles out of their way to look at a ball of twine, and some of us resent the implication that we do. Additionally, this book suffers heavily from a lack of copyediting. I have noticed this problem is increasing in publishing, and have learned to brush it off, but there were some glaring errors here that should have been fixed. For instance, a deputy's wife's name changes from chapter to chapter, and toward the end when Charlie, Grace's dog, is tracking, he very first does it on foot, apparently running more than 40 miles an hour, and then miraculously in the subsequent chapter, he's back inside the RV, but still, amazingly enough, doing his tracking thing from inside the vehicle. We could put an end to the drug trade if the DEA had a few dogs like that. One question I have that will not go away is...why didn't the women fix the phone lines on the farm after the bad guys went away? They had time, but I guess it wouldn't have been as exciting as what happened.
Complaints aside, I have to give this book high marks simply because I could not put it down. I could overlook the things that bothered me simply because I needed to know what was happening, and I devoured this book very quickly. Though Pete Hautman's books have a better "Minnesota feel" than Tracy's for us locals, these books are still fun, and the intrigue in this one was excellent.
Rated by buyers 
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I have really enjoyed all of the PJ Tracy novels. They develop the characters well and have an excellent blend of humour and intrigue.
My only complaint about the books is that there are so many important characters that each book seems to focus on one group, to the detriment of the development of the other characters. For example, the second book did not include as much of the Monkeewrench gang who were easily my favorite characters from the very first book.
But the 3rd and 4th did a good job of catching up on those characters and balancing out the coverage.
I've nearly finished their most recent novel and am already eagerly awaiting their next.
Rated by buyers -
PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of the combination of a mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht. It is certainly unusual if not unique. Their very first three novels, Monkeewrench, Live Bait and Dead Run,, have become national and international bestsellers.
Much like some of the other reviewers I read and enjoyed Monkeewrench and Live Bait and expected something equally good or better from this writing pair. I was not disappointed. Although this type of book is not my very first choice, preferring to read historical fact or fiction, after reading the very first in the series I was not about to pass up on this one. I don't know whether it is a matter of two brains is better than one, or the duo just have a knack of coming up with a good plot that stimulates the reader and keeps them attentive throughout the book.
This book has a really sinister and eerie plot that involves the trio of Grace Macbride, Annie Belinsky and Deputy Sharon Mueller who break down on a drive from Minneapolis to Green Bay. They are deep in the forest and cannot obtain signals on their phones. A trek through the woods brings them to the town of Four Corners, where they had hoped to get a mechanic to fix the car. But the place is a ghost town and the telephone lines have been cut in every building.
The trio who had set out to investigate what they believe to be the work of a serial killer, suddenly find themselves witnessing a horrific double killing and end up being the hunted instead of the hunters . . .
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