Review of Chicagomane

[Black Jewel]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Chicagomane" by Carl J Beene.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Tuffy Walker is visiting Chicago on a business trip when he sees Lilly Chambers, a black woman living in Chicago. She is walking down the street with a friend after finishing her day at college. Being an entitled white man from the deep south, Tuffy decides he wants a piece of Lilly and is outraged when she dares to refuse him. By the end of the encounter, Lilly winds up dead, and a string of events is triggered that Tuffy would never be able to imagine.

Tuffy is a superior white man, and Lilly is just a black girl, so her death is of little consequence to Tuffy, and he returns to his home in the south as though nothing has happened. But Lilly’s father is A.D. Chambers, the most powerful and feared black man in Chicago, and he has vowed to settle things his way, and make sure his daughter’s death is avenged by any means possible. And he’s found just the man crazy enough to pull it all off. He’s called the Chicagomane.

I really liked the concept of this book when I picked it, and the book followed through in that regard. It was an interesting read that often had me wondering how the man from Chicago was going to accomplish his goal.

With that said, however, this book was honestly a hot mess. Chicagomane by Carl J. Beene, in my opinion, is not ready to be on the market and needs to be gone over again to fix the numerous formatting errors riddling this story. There is also distracting evidence that this book has been gone over by an editor or proofreader because it is full of footnotes that lead to a list at the end of this book with suggestions for corrections. The pacing in this story was also off for me. For the bulk of the book, I had to fight to keep my attention from wandering, even though I was genuinely interested in the outcome.

This book was also full of phonetic speech to differentiate between black and white speakers. There were several instances where I had to reread a passage multiple times to understand exactly what it was I was reading. While I understand this is most likely necessary to the story, it did detract considerably from the story for me.

Due to this, I am rating this book 2 out of 4 stars. Without these errors, the book would be a much better read. And while there is evidence that it has been edited, a great deal more needs to be done before I can give it that final stamp of approval. I cannot say at this time that it is well-edited.

As for the audience that I would recommend this for, this book is full of racism, profanity, and gory death. I do not recommend it to the faint of heart. But if you like historically accurate books and can look beyond that, this book just might be for you.

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Chicagomane
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[usef nahg]

I dont think i could ever read a book where one of the main plot conflicts is racism, so good on you for being able to do it. Great review!!

[Rishi_reviews]

The plot of the story seems really thrilling and I always like stories with crime and murder and stuff. I'm curious to know hoe A. D. Chambers will avenge his daughter. Thanks for the review.

[Alexander C Schmoock]

The crazy entitlement mindset of Tuffy makes him such a disgusting character ready. Racism is a topic I'm passionate about and I'm most definitely going to read this book cause it's a major theme in it. Great review.