THE FBI MURDERS by Anthony Serena is a book you must really want to read in order to finish.   The premise is engaging enough.   Francis Cavanaugh dies on his fishing boat leaving behind a sister and nephew, Patrick Desmond, to whom he bequeaths an unusual inheritance—one that may just get Patrick killed.

Cavanaugh’s death is flanked by the death of another FBI executive—also under extraordinary circumstances.    It doesn’t take Patrick long to begin making connections and to realize both deaths have followed J. Edgar Hoover’s demise by a scant week.   

Armed with his inheritance—a journal detailing deception and duplicity at the highest levels of the American government—Patrick begins a journey through New England, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and California in an effort to save his own life the only way he knows how: solving the FBI murders.  

The chief problem with Serena’s novel is not the plot at all, but the dialogue.  Throughout the book, the characters simply don’t use realistic dialogue.    In the first few pages of the book, Patrick’s mother says, “He was… avuncular.  I think that’s what it means when your uncle is concerned for your welfare…”   If the author wanted to use the avuncular, then use it.  But, don’t follow that up by spelling it out for the reader.   Later, Patrick says, “Jesus! Mary and Joseph… I’m reverting to Southie expressions lately.”  You’re left wondering why Serena feels he needs to tell the reader so much. 

 The plot is wild and winds around until you have no clue how it will shake out.  This is an inventive look at some possible scenarios to explain the Kennedy Assassination, the identity of Deepthroat, and the death of Hoover—a murder?—but to get there, the reader must wade knee deep through conversational hell.  No one talks like the characters in this book.   Many characters simply have pages of monologue disguised as conversation.   Couple the dialogue issues with massive paragraphs and you’ve just sucked the enjoyment of reading a novel.  In this readers opinion, only the most die hard fans of FBI-inspired plots will be able to wade through this muck.  The premise is great, but the dialogue made it for tough reading.