Review written November 4, 20163.8 Stars - Surprisingly entertaining. A good listening, I truly enjoyed and will continue this series.A $3 light and funny police mystery and a serial opener. — 8:18 hrs audiobook narrated by Jeff Woodman. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Sea Haven, New Jersey US. « John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old Army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer's

A fun story with a good mystery that kept me changing my suspicions and suspects throughout. Ceepack is a retired MP turned small seaside town policeman who has a very strict code of right and wrong coupled with an extremely mellow personality. Ceepack and his summer apprentice must get to the bottom of an ever changing murder investigation that has too many odd suspects. A fun and light read that was good from the very start. This is the first in a series that I will definitely be revisiting. J...

A very good mystery with great characters and lots of surprises. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series!

John Ceepak and Danny Boyle, two Sea Haven, NJ cops, are breakfasting at the Pancake Palace, discussing a tricycle theft - the usual sort of summer crime in town - when a 12 year old girl runs up the street in a bloody dress screaming that someone killed her father, Reginald Hart. Someone emptied a 9mm clip into Hart as he sat beside his daughter on a tilt a whirl car in the Sunnyside Playland before it was open. Hart was a billionaire real estate tycoon though many called him a slumlord.Ashley

Contents: Violence, frequent swearing — F-bombs and religious bombs, and sexually unsavory elements. Book one in this mystery series, set in a small oceanside resort town on the Jersey Shore. This particular murder occurred at the boardwalk. The two main characters are John Ceepak, an honorable, by-the-book, true-blue-maybe-too-blue former military police officer. Ceepak lives by the code and compares life to Bruce Springstein lyrics. He becomes a hero to his partner Danny, a very young rookie c...

So this book won an award for "Best First Mystery"? With such two dimensional characters, and hackneyed, obvious plot, I can't imagine why. Maybe the series gets better, but I'm wary of investing the time to find out.

Rating: 3.75* of fiveThe Publisher Says: There isn't much sun in the fun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the Tilt-A-Whirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet summer tourist town of Sea Haven. John Ceepak, a former MP just back from Iraq, has just joined the Sea Haven police department. The job offer came from an old army buddy who hoped to give Ceepak at least a summer's worth of rest and relaxation to help him forget the horrors of war. Instead, C...

3.5 stars (maybe 3.75)Reading this book was like being on a Tilt-a-Whirl. You're excited to start, have high hopes, it's fun, and then boring, and then after too many rotations you think you'll puke... and you get off swearing you'll never go on the ride again (but in a few years you'll forget and try again) I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it... It's the "middle of the road" kind of book I'd usually (blissfully) forget but I don't think this one will be forgotten because there are too many m...

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.--- Danny Boyle grew up in Sea Haven, NJ -- a tourist trap of a town on the Jersey Shore. He likes the life -- hanging out with the friends he's had since high school, goofing around, eating and drinking more than he should. He's got a nice Summer gig -- working as a Part-Time police officer. The downside is his partner -- John Ceepak, an Iraq War vet and former MP. He's so by the book, he might as well have written it. T...

If someone combined the DNA of Captain America and Dudley Do-Right to create a superior human being, then John Ceepak would probably be the result. And then we would have to rise up and slay him for making the rest of us look so bad.Ceepak was with the military police in the army, but a bad tour in Baghdad has left him with a phobia about driving. He’s now a police officer in a vacation resort town called Sea Haven where a young part-time cop and local boy named Danny Boyle is assigned as his pa...

Nice story. I like the main characters. I got the impression I was reading a script for a TV series. That's neither bad nor good, just what I was thinking as a read it. If it was a TV series, it would be one that I would certainly watch. But it wasn't compelling enough for me to want to immediately seek out the second book of the series.

This is actually my first Chris Grabenstein book and I am glad I finally gave this one a "whirl"! John Ceepak is the main character and protagonist for this series and I liked him pretty much right out of the gate. Ceepak is an upstanding, virtuous, extremely polite cop who has to solve a kidnapping - which meant also interacting with some not so bright, narcissistic suspects/victims. The writing for these scenes is phenomenal and the dry tone perfection. . . Reminiscent (for me) of Carl Hiaasen...

How to describe it? It's amusing, but it's more. It's not just "fun." There is suffering and grief in this book - which kind of surprised me after reading the wit from the very likable Danny's narration. There is fear and betrayal. Which helps the reader to better appreciate the fun, the hope, the courage of both part-time cop Danny and "Boy Scout" Ceepak. Ceepak seems to be Danny's mentor, yet he has a way of making Danny feel he's a valid contributor to the case they're working on; they make a...

I noted a review of this author here on goodreads, prompting me to try this police procedural series featuring America's Jersey shore. The book came out about 2001. There are a number of books featuring a former soldier turned cop who is big on protection of the innocent and following rules. He is paired with a part-time cop who is our narrator.The plot in this one involves the murder of a wealthy man who is sitting on a tilt-o-whirl with his daughter. And then things get more complicated when t...

With a solid plot, interesting characters and a few very funny passages, there's nothing not to like here. I'm also very happy to read a mystery without serial killers and pages of gore.

Tilt-A-Whirl by Chris Grabenstein is the first book in the John Ceepak Mystery series. Former MP John Ceepak partners with part time summer cop Danny Boyle in the quiet tourist town of Sea Haven and heads the investigation of the shooting of a real estate tycoon on the Tilt-A-Whirl at an amusement park. An entertaining mystery with great characters. It was interesting to learn about John Ceepak and his code and the way that Danny looks up to him as a bit of a superhero. An enjoyable and fun book...

Thank you to WhatAStrangeDuck for the encouragement about Tilt the Whir. It was a surprisingly humorous murder mystery. I've read many mysteries and I don't think I've ever read one from this point-of-view. Ceepack is both complex and simple at the same time. Danny was my kind of guy. Heck, I kinda enjoyed each character and even though nothing is new it was overall a hoot! Since I spent many summer weekends in that kind of NJ seaside town it was even more captivating

I really liked this one ... a lot! Where to begin after saying that ... I spent a few decades in the Garden State (ages 2 - 35), though have only been Down the Shore a few times for day trips; still, I've heard enough stories to know that instead of laying things on thick here, the author's portrayal was actually understated, if anything. I'll start with the plot, where the only "fault" I really found was in believing that municipal cops would end up having any say in investigating such a high-p...

First ... thank you to Mark Baker for letting me know about this mystery series from a recently discovered author (see the fabulous Mr. Lemoncello Library series). More importantly, I've found a new mystery series to delve into this spring! I couldn't be more excited as I think I've got a crush on John Ceepak, the former military man now cop/detective. The story is told by his partner, Danny Boyle, and we are immediately introduced to the mystery of the murder of a millionaire right in front of

Stumbled on this little gem of a series thanks to NPR Books. Found the first 3 in the series on sale for 99 cents in the Kindle store and am already on #3 (Whack-a-Mole) thanks to good writing, tight plotting, twists in just the right places & two very likable & complex main characters. The setting, the fictional New Jersey shore town Sea Haven, is perfectly described- so much so I could close my eyes and see the lights & smell the smells of the boardwalk. Yes, it was a touch predictable but I t...