Book four of Tracy’s Los Angeles based, Detective Margaret Nolan crime series. I wait for these books — for me they are a perfect combination of pacing, surprises, and just the right amount of tension (i.e. not too much because I don’t enjoy being anxious, but just enough that I’m not bored reading about tea parties while someone is murdered offstage).
In this episode, what appears to be “just” another fatal car jacking, turns out to be a far more complex crime involving big business, cartels, and some pretty crazy people. I love Margaret Nolan as a detective. She has the same qualities you would appreciate in a male detective — strong, competent, honest, determined — and manages to be simultaneously female without having to introduce any “traditionally feminine” traits. No shopping scenes! No whining with girlfriends about men! No struggling with single motherhood while trying to have a career! She’s just a consummate cop who happens to be a woman. Thank goodness. She’s a great character and I’m happy to read more about her. Other strong characters populate the series — her cynical and somewhat world-weary partner Al Crawford, Sam Easton — a friend recovering from Afghanistan induced PTSD, and Remy Boudreau, fellow homicide detective and a more serious than planned lover.
One of my favorite mystery / crime writers. I really like her writing — a few quotes:
“They were victims of a rotting culture of violence — domestic terrorism, really, — that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many gangsters the LAPD locked up.”
“He was wearing a foul weather windbreaker and his frowny, pissed-off face. Maybe it was because his tiny umbrella had unicorns on it.”
“From a young age, her mother had always told her that her rare combination of strawberry-blonde hair and pale skin made her a genetic tinderbox and her temper should be managed early.”
“Consorting with evil to exterminate greater evil was an existential conflict of the job — hell, of the world — but it was getting more difficult to justify.”
“Interviewing witnesses was like slowly unwrapping a gift, hoping there was a gold nugget inside instead of a lump of coal.”
“Nolan was always amazed by the sullen indifference of criminals, like they were ordinary citizens who’d just gotten a bogus speeding ticket.”
“The job was slowly corroding him from the inside, like poison that didn’t kill you right away. So was Los Angeles. It had a shrill, dangerous hum that hadn’t existed five years ago, and it scared him.”
Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 20th, 2024.
Books to look forward to ... 