By David Unger, PHD
KDP 2023
232 pages Mystery/Humor
A Lesson in Woo-Woo and Murder is the ninth “lesson”
book by psychologist, David Unger. Surprisingly, the main protagonist of the
book is a psychologist named David Unger. I had read several pages before I said
to myself, “Wait, Who is telling this woo-woo story?” I had to start the book
all over again. Apparently the main protagonist in all of David Unger’s books
is aah…David Unger.
Because this is a tricky book to review, I will refer to the
publisher’s synopsis to get started on this review:
“David’s chakras are
stimulated and he takes a skeptical step into the unknown when he’s asked for
support at the Santa Monica Whole Life Expo – bad juju is coming, and positive
therapeutic auras are required. Murder soon spoils the cosmic karma, and
with the posse on hand to spice up the mystic mix, David’s sleuthing leads him
to places he’s never been before, and most likely won’t return to.
But David is distracted – Nova, the Love Doctor,
puts the “oo” in his personal woo-woo, and when a psychic foretells of romance
in his future, he all but enters a different dimension. David’s special
brand of voodoo-therapy-magic has never been more at home, but can he overcome
his super Nova distraction for long enough to unmask the killer before anyone
else gets hurt?”
Not having read any of the ‘Lesson’
books by David Unger, I had no idea what I was getting into. First, the book
takes place in 1985 when a “Whole Life Expo” was a “New Age, spiritual, natural
health, conscious living, metaphysical, extraterrestrial, enlightening
hodgepodge of vendors, speakers, and snake-oil purveyors.” David, the hero of
the story, has never been to a Whole Life Expo, nor have I. After reading the
book, I’m not sure I would have gone, because there is a lot of woo-woo going
on at the Expo and a lot of very weird characters. Very shortly, three of the
vendors are killed, and David’s curiosity gets the best of him.
David has already solved at least eight
murders in previous books with a certain
amount of his karma, and the karma is very evident in the woo-woo murders as he
stumbles along, trying to solve these new murders that he has indeed stumbled
into. He can’t help himself, as he pursues Nova, the love doctor, at the same
time he is trying to solve the mystery.
The chapters are really short and
contain a lot of cringe-worthy humor. Frankly, it was the short chapters and
the humor that kept me reading. The plot, in itself, is not really enough.
Several times I caught myself reading and thought, “Why am I doing this?” Although
not very enlightening, A Lesson in Woo-Woo and Murder is a lot of
fun. It would be a perfect airplane read or a good audio book for a long ride.
Fun without taking up too much intellect or concentration other than remembering
the names of a lot of strange characters.
A Lesson in Woo-Woo and Murder is coming out in two weeks. Look for it. You will have a lot
of fun.
David Unger PHD’s website. On his website is an audio recording recalling
how he got into the humor/mystery writing business in the first place.
1 comment:
Thank you Miriam for you review I do, indeed have a really good time writing the series. You might be interested to know that George Bush and Bill Clinton listed Kinky Friedman as one of their favorite authors. Kinky is an irreverent country western singer who wrote 17 books in a mystery series where he was the main protagonist, although he relocated himself from Texas to Greenwich Village.
Take care,
David
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