Glenn Marcel

The opening of this book is great and I really enjoyed the first 8 chapters - they were funny and pacy, tightly written and made me want to read on. The ending was also good where the story lines (mostly) all tie up and some mysteries are solved.
However I struggled to read the middle section and only persevered because I received this book free in a Member Giveaway and promised a review in return. In this section of the book the story has shifted to some years in the future and the daughter of a man killed chasing Elvis has grown up and is now a reporter. This storyline is easy to follow but has an unnecessary diversion to Canada hunting Yeti that was really quite pointless and annoying.
Another storyline following a spoiled rich kid weaves through this and is also too long and convoluted with unnecessary characters. The reason for this story is not revealed until the end, whereas a few hints would have helped to see what the relevance was to the overall plot. I think this book and the writer himself have a lot of potential but the books needs the touch of a good editor to tighten up the story and keep the readers interested.… (meer)

Had it not been for the fact that I won Chasing Elvis in return for writing a review, I would probably never have finished reading it. A sense of obligation, not suspense, spurred me on.
I DO want to say, however, that the writer, Glenn Marcel, shows enormous potential. (I hope that doesn't sound condescending because, heaven knows, I couldn't write a novel.) However...this novel is so badly in need of an editor to tighten it up. The plot was so convoluted and some characters appeared to have no REAL part to play since they contributed nothing to the plot itself. And the Sasquatch interlude - what was the point of that? It just went on and on and on - the reader ends up wading through a swamp of verbiage instead of anxiously turning the page! The book needs editing badly!!
Scenes would change in a single page with no indication that the scene HAD changed. Similarly, a single page could be written from a couple of points of view, making it difficult to follow. Some characters were not sufficiently delineated - one character cleaned out his ear with his index finger, and a few pages later, another character did exactly the same thing!
I also question the choice of words in many instances and this is NOT related to the language used by an actual character, but the language of the author himself. The words 'potty' and 'crapper' jumped off the page, as did 'kooks' in reference to a Psychiatric Hospital. And then there are all the 'feinted' instead of 'fainted' and 'bugger' instead of 'booger' and 'madames' instead of 'mesdames.' The author talks of them getting 'underfoot' when he meant 'underway' and 'caught in his own petard' instead of 'hoist with his own petard'...and on and on. Oh, and he describes Maggie as wearing make-up (she is 5 years old) when he meant Mel. and he writes "...she and Richard's relationship..." And please don't say that they are typos - shouldn't the author have read and reread the book before putting it out there?
And all the business of the gun not being declared - sorry, but it's illegal to bring a gun from the States into Canada without declaring it. And when Mel asks what kind of kook would impersonate a dead person at the Elvis festival - she's a reporter for heaven's sake, has she never heard of Tribute Bands?
So, the bottom line, in its present form, I cannot recommend Chasing Elvis.… (meer)