Krishna
Prolog : Jonathan Stanton is lying, bleeding to death. Taken by ambulance in literally the last moment. At the end of the book, you realize that this has only a peripheral relationship to the story and is a kind of a click-bait.
The story begins with a restaurant owner Tim Piggeneli, getting worried about the inexplicable absence of the waitress Tami Jacobs, asks her boyfriend Jimmy to investigate. Jimmy finds her murdered, in her apartment.
Police inspector Michael Harlow wants to recruit retired cop Jon Stanton to lead Cold Case Unit. Stanton left the work due to his family but his wife has left him now so Harlow is hoping to persuade him to be a detective.
He is puzzled by Tami’s death and realizes that she must have swapped her usual night shift to a morning shift on the day of her death. This seems out of pattern.
We realize that Jon’s own partner was a serial killer and when accidentally exposed by evidence in his house, tried to kill Jon and did not succeed. That made Jon leave the force in the previous instance. He goes and meets his partner and learns that the man had nothing to do with the murder of Tami.
Now, he goes after the one clue which suggests that a key piece of evidence was ‘ordered’ to be left out of the files. Against protocol, pretending to be police, he confronts a man involved in the coverup (an ex cop) and gets nowhere. He digs deep using his old contacts and finds a weak spot to push the ex cop Francisco but again – he thinks – he gets nowhere.
He now gets fired by his boss for going against regulations. But Francisco had left a note for him in the mail which opens his eyes. Wide.
He confronts his boss privately and informs him that he, Harlow , is the one who ordered the critical piece of information to be removed. Harlow confesses to an affair with Tami and Jon gives him an ultimatum to come clean publicly or else he, Jon, will reveal all.
Next day, when he left before dawn to the beach for a run, he finds his apartment was blown up and when his body not found, an alert was put out for him for the murder of Francisco with ‘evidence’. His partner Jessica informs him on the phone and agrees to meet him in a restaurant but that was a trap. Last minute, she realizes that he has been telling the truth and warns him and he is stopped by a police officer – he scuffles and manages to escape, barely.
Now he is on the run, trying to prove who was involved. Melissa, his ex wife, confronts Harlow and blackmails him into dropping charges on John. Jessica meanwhile wants to quit the force but is assigned with Jon to solve Tami Jacobs case.
In the meanwhile – totally inexplicably – he finds another body in an abandoned house. Also the killer seems to be leaving clues in the murder scenes, after the police have looked in and investigated, for John taunting him with the fact that he will murder again and signing his name as Quaker.
If this is a detective tale, it is a somewhat strange tale.
He again is asked by Harlow to do something illegal by snooping around without a warrant and Stanton agrees. What a crappy story. He knows Harlow is bent, knows Harlow tried to frame him but agrees to do whatever it takes.
Other absurdities abound. The killer is casually explained away – yes, I know it is someone we knew already but the complex weave is weird. Also the simple matter of someone just going in and planting messages for a detective – after a crime scene has been investigated and the tape is still there – somehow knowing that the hero would be coming for sure to find it there? Come on.
The kidnap of the last victim, told from the victim’s point of view, is a lot more interesting than the narration so far.
And then there is the budding romance between Jessica and Stanton and the yes, no, yes, no scenario; coupled with his wife Melissa wanting to be with him, no, wants, no scenario; all these are enough to drive you, the reader, up a wall.
For all that, it is not a boring story, just not logical – that is all.
4/10
– – Krishna