The Fourth Perspective

By Robert Greer

A rare antique draws Denver detective C. J. Floyd into a plot of murder, greed, and a mystery rooted in nineteenth-century Utah.
 
The owner of a Denver antique shop specializing in western collectibles, C. J. Floyd stumbles upon a unique find in the form of a book from post–Civil War America. It’s evidence of the near-mythic existence of a fourth daguerreotype, alleged to have been taken during the 1869 Golden Spike Ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, upon the completion of the transcontinental railroad. The existing three photos are museum artifacts. If C. J. is reading the clues right, he’s close to locating the fourth piece of an irreplaceable historical puzzle that at least one person has already died for.
 
When the book thief who sold him the stolen vintage tome is shot to death in an alley behind the store, C. J. is pegged as a suspect. Unfortunately, his angle on the crime isn’t easy to prove.
 
Soliciting help from his former bail-bonding bounty-hunter partners, C. J. follows a twisting path back through the secrets of American history, stalked by dangerous collectors, covetous art dealers, ruthless power brokers, obsessive curators, and a psychotic Rhodes scholar on a personal mission of revenge. As priceless as the ultimate prize might be, it could very well cost C. J. the most valuable thing of all: his life.
 
 Bestselling author Robert Greer has been hailed as a “taut, powerful writer” (The Plain Dealer). Fans of hardboiled detective stories or the novels of Walter Mosley will enjoy his series featuring a tough African American sleuth in the modern-day West.
 
The Fourth Perspective is the 5th book in the C. J. Floyd Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Feb 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504043212

Reviews for The Fourth Perspective

[eviltammy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

C.J. Floyd is trying to leave his years as a bail bondsman behind and to get his new life as an antique and Western collectibles dealer going. But when he's sold a stolen book, by a young man who is murdered soon after, his past skills connect with his current life, as he hunts for a killer, and the story behind a rare photograph. Good story, could have been tighter, a bit too much going on. Interesting perspective on African Americans in the Old (and current) West. Fascinating historical bits and lots of interesting insights on collectors and dealers.

[haidadareads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was excellent. The author did a wonderful job creating each character and building up to the climax of the story. I look forward to the next C.J. Floyd mystery. I hope that the next one will also be a historical fiction as well. I enjoyed learning a little about midwestern American history and the characters were believable. There is a hero/heroine, a villain, a sweetheart, a weirdo, you name it, the characters were very much in depth. The only thing that could be improved is to add a little more intimacy or a love scene to the next novel. The only reason I haven't given this book a five, is because I rarely give a perfect rating.

[saltypepper_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book had a lot of potential, enough to make me go to the library to see if they had the first book of the series, but I did not love it. I like that it deals with American history. I liked it that the main character was African-American and lived in the Western US, but not on the coast. Greer is not a great writer, but he can tell a good story. If I saw another book in the series at the bookstore I might pick it up. Good summer reading.

[bjbookman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

THE FOURTH PERSPECTIVE BY ROBERT GREERI am ashamed to admit that this is the first CJ Floyd mystery I have read. I knew Robert Greer had a mystery series, but I neglected it. Maybe because there are so many mysteries set in the West is why. After reading this book, I was so off base. In the already crowded field of western mysteries, this book was a breath of fresh air. Action, mystery, unexpected twist and completely believable plot and characters, this book has it all. Even though I am new to the series I was able to pick up on what happens in the earlier books, due to Greer good writing. I do look forward to reading the earlier novels and the newest installment of bail bond/antique dealer C J Floyd.This book was an enjoyable, intelligent read. I thank library thing early review programs for helping me find this author. This is so much more than a mystery, it is a study in a man wanting to change, but his past won’t let him. Highly recommended.

[charlottem_63 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

C. J. Floyd and his circle of friends are quirky enough to be interesting, but not outlandishly so. The title of the book isn’t readily apparent. I finally tied it to the historical subject that the crime revolves around. Altogether this was a very enjoyable read.

[moovyz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I joined Library Thing a few months ago and was very excited to get in on the Early Review program. As a free-lance writer, I love reading and then critiquing works and this was a perfect opportunity to get my hands on new material and hone my own skills as a writer.I would love to tell everyone that my first review was about some incredible piece of writing that would shake up the literary world but, alas, it seems there are far more ordinary works out there than the occasional Pulitzer Prize winner. My first novel in this program is just that… ordinary.The novel is called “The Fourth Perspective” by Robert Greer. It is subtitled “A C J Floyd Mystery” and perhaps it would have been better if I was familiar with his previous forays into this character.I am a huge fan of mystery novels, especially the works of Rex Stout and Bruce Zimmerman, so I believe that I am qualified to voice an opinion of a repeating character in this genre. But I find Greer’s writing to be flat and tedious to read. The book is written in the 3rd person perspective and perhaps this is one of the problems with “The Fourth Perspective“(no pun intended). I am used to, and in favor of 1st person story-telling. Reading a Nero Wolfe story, as told by Archie Goodwin, is simply the best of the best. And perhaps I am even spoiled as I own that corpus and read it constantly from beginning to end, and then over again. Greer’s writing is very descriptive, but in a way, almost too much so. He is very fond of highly descriptive adjectives and overly passionate in the use of hyphens. This is so evident that on many pages, I found myself actually counting the number of hyphens in a paragraph (BTW, on page 37, there are 24 hyphens in use). Finding yourself dissecting text is not a good thing when one is trying to get “caught up in” a story. There are times when the story moves well and the characters can be interesting. The dialog between characters is believable and fairly straight-forward. His research is impeccable. Perhaps too much so. This leads to seemingly endless descriptive lead-ins to artifacts and history of persons and events in the work. I have read material that deals with scores of different characters or even the tales of just one. Either can be useful, in the right setting. However, there are too many characters in this novel to keep up with, in the context of this particular story. There is an on-going plot-line from previous installments and a fair amount of new characters as well. There are side-kicks and love interests and bystanders aplenty. That combined with the overly-detailed descriptions and hyper-hyphen activity force the reader to re-read paragraphs again and again (and yes, I am using an abundance of hyphens myself, as an example of how annoying the style can be).The story and conclusion is satisfactory at best. In the Introduction, Greer admits to writing in long-hand and I suspect that this may have something to do with his style being tedious. I can imagine him writing, inserting extra words in the notes, margins… crossed out paragraphs and such. If he were to see the end result, as he was typing it, it might be more obvious to him that the text is hard on the eyes… run-ons, hyphens, commas… they lead to distracting the reader, instead of dropping the target audience into the world that the author has created. This is where Stout and Zimmerman excel… they drop you off a cliff into their fictional world and you know you are falling but feel secure in the fact that you know you posses a parachute, in terms of a satisfactory finale. Mr. Greer more or less rolls you down a hill, filled with bumps and rocks, and you end up stumbling along to the conclusion, a bit more worse for wear.The book is not bad by any means… it’s just ordinary. It’s not one that you put down and get frustrated knowing you’ll have to wait months or years for the next installment. Frankly, I don’t feel anyone will be chewing at the bit for the next one. I would not likely even look to see if one was in the works.I feel a bit bad in not being able to highly recommend this book. I wanted my first review to be of a work that I could pass on as inspiring or fulfilling. But I must be honest… this was not my favorite. I would much prefer to have re-read another Stout masterpiece or a good solid biography. I didn’t share in the perils of the character, nor did I care what happened to them in the end. Empathy, for a fictional character is rare. And in my favorites, this is a recurring emotion. I care what happens to those characters and I can even predict how they might react in certain circumstances. And I certainly look forward to their next adventures, feeling privileged at their including me in the trip. That is what is missing in Mr. Greer’s writing… I really can’t feel what he wants me to feel. Perhaps it was because I had to work so hard to follow along. Perhaps it was because of the 3rd person narrative. Or perhaps it’s just “not my cup or tea”. There is nothing really wrong with the novel… but then again, there is nothing remarkable about it either.