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Rating:  -
Natalie goes to Hawaii to be a part of her friend's wedding. Monk cannot part with his trusted assistant, so he tags along to essentially ruin Natalie's vacation in paradise. Along the way, Monk exposes the groom, has troubles with rental cars, solves burglaries, and of course gets involved with a murder investigation (which just happens to occur at the same hotel he is at). But the most interesting twist to this story is the enigmatic TV psychic who is taking credit for Monk's brilliant observations. Monk is frustrated, knowing the psychic is a fraud, and Monk wants to expose him. I think you will enjoy Monk's devilish plan to put the psychic to the test.
Rating: -
I am really enjoying reading these books about Monk. I've read several other books by Lee Goldberg, including the Diagnosis Murder book where the Doc & his son go to Hawaii. I found it hilarious that they also met the same character that Monk & Natalie meet in Hawaii. (talk about recycling a character - LOL!)
Lee Goldberg writes clearly and easily understood stories that completely fit the characters from the TV Shows. It's easier to carry the books with me on the bus to work than carrying the TV with me in order to get my "Monk Fix". I can't wait to buy the next Monk book.
Rating: -
Better than the first in the book series, I quite enjoyed this book. This second book showed Monk more personable and rather protective in his soft way over Natalie against a viper. The series is fun in that it shows Monk solving several mysteries in one book, rather than the TV episodes solving usually only one.
Rating:  -
This is the second of Lee Goldberg's Monk books that I've read. I started with "Mr Monk & the Blue Flu" which was written after this one and I'm glad that I did. I don't think the true charcter of Monk was really captured in this book. By the time "Blue Flu" was written I think Goldberg got the hang of it but not here.
There are plenty of funny phobias and strange things that Monk does which kept me laughing but they seemed out of place with the more normal things that he does. The different aspects of Monk are too extreme from one another. He's goes from being really Monkish to being just a regular cop doing or saying things that we wouldn't expect from him & it just doesn't flow very well. Also, he & Natalie play too much of a buddy-buddy crime solving team then they should. Of course I base my comparisons & criticism to the show which has really defined the characters so well that we feel like we know them & we know how they should act.
One aspect from the show that Goldberg recycles here that works well is from the episode where Adrian takes medication & becomes "The Monk". He becomes really cool and laid back with none of his usual worries however he also looses all his crime-solving sense. The author uses this to explain why Monk would get on a plane by himself & fly to Hawaii. It provides for an interesting plane ride.
Since the story takes place on location, we don't have all the regular characters involved otherwise the story might just as well be in San Francisco. Thus it becomes mostly a Monk & Natalie story with very little Stottlemeyer & Disher and I think the lack of their presence hurts the book a litlle bit.
The real strength of the story comes through at the end of the book. Without giving anything away, Monk basically solves the mystery due to his trust in his beliefs and it is very Trudy-related. When Adrian opens up & exposes his emotions he becomes vulnerable yet strong at the same time because he knows he is right. This is the main strength of the show also and it is done very well here.
Overall, not tremendous, but I'm still hooked. Which one should I read next?
Rating: -
As a reader who has flung more than one book across the room in disgust for the revolting portrayal of a female character as a sex-obsessed twit (books that are almost always, but not *quite* always, written by men) -- I was truly shocked to read Lisa Shea's review.
One of the things I love so much about the "Monk" series is the fact that Lee Goldberg appears to be one of three male writers in the world that I have come across that can actually write a female character that comes across as a woman *and* as a human being AT THE SAME TIME, and do it so honestly and flawlessly that I forget while I'm reading that the book hasn't actually been written by a woman. (The other two who can manage this incredible feat are Nick Hornby, and Stephen King (but only in his most recent years; he used to be one of the most guilty when it came to authors incapable of writing female characters as, y'know, human *beings*.)) Most other male writers simply cannot manage to write an entirely realistic female character -- or, they can manage a realistic female character, but they just don't quite capture the voice or tone entirely, and, while I can completely and utterly accept their female character as realistic, something is still missing.
I don't have this problem with Mr. Goldberg's "Monk" books. I don't hear the voice of a male author when I read this series -- more to the point, I don't hear the voice of the author at all. I simply hear Natalie, because her inner voice is captured so flawlessly and so *honestly* that nothing else is there but the character herself. Once I read the first "Monk" book, I realized that the series was going to do the impossible -- make me love Adrian Monk even more than I already do -- but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it also made me a bigger Natalie fan.
Natalie thinks about, and comments on, breasts and stomach flatness and cute guys in this book series. But that's *in her character*. (It's in most women's character.) She doesn't obsess over these things to the point of becoming shallow -- it's simply something she occasionally thinks about, which is in keeping with her character and something we HAVE seen on the show. Again, I find the writing to be keeping in perfect step with the Natalie we've gotten to know on the show -- and neither on the show nor in the novels has Natalie ever been portrayed as shallow. Wanting a flat stomach does not make a character shallow. It makes her *human*.
As to the scenes of Natalie kissing Monk's forehead, and Monk rubbing lotion into Natalie's back after she had been hurt ... I've read three of the four currently-released novels (I'm saving "Two Assistants" for a weekend getaway trip in a few weeks), and of the first three, "Goes to Hawaii" is my favorite. I love it for the lush scenery descriptions, I love it for the depth of character show in Natalie when she misses Mitch so strongly and is desperate for answers about what happened to him. I love it for the scenes where Monk goes head-to-head with Swift (I am a violent hater of John Edward, or anyone who preys on people's grief to make a profit), and for the way Monk never lets Swift's prodding at the raw nerves of Monk's grief for Trudy get in the way of his determination to stop Swift. But most of all, I love it for the tender, subtle way that Monk and Natalie's friendship is deepened (but never to anything more than what the show has already shown us about their relationship). I love how protective Monk gets of Natalie, and how angry he is when Swift starts manipulating Natalie's grief about Mitch. And the lotion "massage" scene (which wasn't about massage at all) was so touching that I found myself tearing up while reading it -- and there was so absolutely nothing sexual about that scene that I can't quite figure out how anyone could read it that way. We have seen countless examples of how much Monk and Natalie care about each other, how deep their friendship and understanding of each other runs -- and that scene of Monk cleaning the cut on Natalie's leg and rubbing lotion into her sunburn (particularly seeing as he started out by wrapping his hands in sandpaper-scrape-worthy paper towels) is a funny, tender scene that shows Monk willing to bear up under a handful of his phobias and neuroses to help a hurt friend.
It's exactly those sort of moments that make the show for me ... and exactly those sort of moments that make the novel series such a good one. Kudos to Lee Goldberg not only for his portrayal of a realistic female character, but for creating a book series that follows the tone and spirit of the television show *and* reads not as a TV-show-based "book" but as a true *novel*.
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