Julius Katz Mysteries by Dave Zeltserman

I used to get my grandpa's Ellery Queen magazines every month and relished them from cover to cover.  Now I'm lucky to get one or two a year since he moved in a different state.  Unfortunately for me, the one or two I received didn't have these wonderful stories in them from Dave Zeltserman.  But, luckily for me, I got to review them!
Julius Katz is probably one of the laziest investigators I've ever seen, but also shrewd, cunning, and intelligent.  Not alot gets by Julius, it's almost like his mind is a computer.  But Julius likes to live the high life, but he doesn't like to work for it.  He spends his days wooing women, drinking wine, and gambling.  When his bank account is low, he takes on a case.

"Archie", as that is what he is called, is a two inch piece of technology, twenty years into the future.  Archie is much like a computer, always analyzing, compiling data, doing the leg work for Julius's cases.  He's also the secretary, setting up appointments, making calls, and lending his own spin on the investigation.  Archie envisions himself about five feet (as that is how high he is resting on Julius's tie as a tie tac), chubby and with thinning hair.  He talks too, and lately has picked up quite a few human traits like sarcasm.

There are two suspenseful reads in Julius Katz Mysteries, and even though Julius and Archie may be working the same case, they come at it from different perspectives.  Archie may have a revelation, and so may Julius, but Julius is constantly surprising Archie - whose probability is almost never wrong.  A dynamic duo that I would love to read more adventures of.  The characters are so multi-dimensional, you can envision them in your mind, with quirks and antics that give them a life of their own.  Mr. Zeltserman pens a superb mystery; I couldn't figure out who the culprit was until Julius and Archie led me to them.  Absolutely fantastic! I highly recommend this series to any mystery suspense reader.  Julius and Archie remind me a bit of all of the great sleuths, but uniquely their own.