Naked Alliances: A Richard Noggin Novel

The Naked Eye Series, Book 1

By: S.K. Nicholls

Narrated by: Steven Barnett

When a young immigrant woman and an exotic dancer are forced to flee men with guns and have no place to hide, Richard Noggin, PI, can't turn his back - even if helping out makes him a target. Richard plans to impress an aspiring politician by taking on a big white-collar case that could take him from the streets to an air-conditioned office. Instead, he's handed a cold case and quickly finds himself sucked into a shadowy world of sex, secrets and murder. Marked for a bullet and stretched thin by his investigations, Richard reluctantly teams up with the unlikely, brassy custodian of the young woman on the run. With bodies piling up, Richard and his companion are forced to go undercover in a most unlikely locale: the Leisure Lagoon, a nudist resort. Going undercover in this instance will mean going uncovered...but lives are at stake - and this Naked Eye will have to juggle to keep his balls in the air and connect the dots before anyone else is murdered. As his pulse-quickening quest for answers leads from the dark corners of Orlando's Little Saigon to the sunny exposure of the Leisure Lagoon, Richard will be put to the test. Just how much will this Naked Eye have to bear...or bare?

©2016 Susan K. Nicholls (P)2017 Susan K. Nicholls

Summary a tad misleading?

Any additional comments?

Struggling with how to review this book. I think it was overall well written (though the protagonists seem to get away with offing bad people with little scrutiny), and the narration was quite good. From the reviews and the summary, though, I was expecting something a little lighter. While I get that there's nothing light at all about child sex trafficking, I had it in my head that the characters were going to banter more, be more playful (or at least playfully caustic), just something more to counteract the seriousness of the plot line. It never happened. Wasn't a bad read/listen, I just personally need more escapism from the evils of the world that the author tackles in her plot line. Ambivalent as to picking up the (presumed) next in the series.

A bit hard to follow at times

So many congruent storylines happening at once it’s hard to follow at times. Wish the swinger element wasn’t present too. Feels like it aligns nudists with swingers when it shouldn’t and confuses listeners as to what’s what at times. Would have been a lot better if the “lifestyle” and sex club was left out.

Crazy characters in a crazy world

This first novel in The Naked Eye Series is a very good start. I'm glad I decided to listen to audio rather than read the book because Steven Barnett is a wonderful narrator. He juggled a mild-mannered private eye, an often outraged transsexual, a frightened Asian teenager and a stereotypical Dragon Lady. The story--private eye gets sucked into helping two young women flee a mafia ring of child prostitution and hides them for a time at a nudist resort--is par for the course in a state that has interstates lined with billboards claiming life begins at conception alternating with those hawking the adult store off the next exit. Nicholls takes tips from the masters in creating unique, likeable characters. Brandi, the transsexual formerly known as Brandon, is no doubt going to be every reader's favorite. Noggin is a slow burn; generally likeable but seemingly sheltered and out of his depth for a private eye. I do have a few minor quibbles with the novel:
1. The pace was uneven, most often fast but occasionally it would grind to a halt while Brandi or some other character got up on a soap box to pontificate.
2. Some of the characters, like the evil Dragon Lady as I thought of her, were just too stereotypical, too one-dimensional.
3. While the history of nudism and the nudist resort in particular was interesting, it really slowed the novel down. Some of the history could have been saved for future installments.
4. An Aha moment late in the novel, as Noggin and Brandi solved one particular murder, was underwhelming since the murderer seemed to come from left field.
5. Finally, and this is just a personal observation, I really didn't like how Brandon became Brandi. I liked Brandi a lot and felt very comfortable and fascinated with her integration of her feminine self and her masculine experiences. But the reason why Brandi became Brandon was a disappointing discovery.
All that said, I do recommend this first installment in S.K Nicholls's new The Naked Eye series. I expect it's only going to get better and I look forward to more adventures with Noggin and Brandi.

Great story for Central Floridians

You know where you're going with every twist and turn of the car. Visual descriptions of area are spot on. Story is fast moving, interesting and easy to follow. Good characters you want as friends - the bad ones you want to call OPD or OCSD to report. Hope next edition is ready soon.