The Blue Edge of Midnight by Jonathon King

I finished The Confession on Friday morning just before the trip home from Mexico City, started this King book waiting for the flight, and finished this morning before church. Yeah, it was that cool.

Max Freeman was a smart but unambitious cop in Philadelphia, average from the academy to the beat. A call comes about a robbery in progress just around the corner. He makes the turn in a 2-footed slide to face a kid with a gun. He hesitates, sees a second perp run from the store and fires, killing a 12 year old kid, but not before taking a slug in the neck - thus beginning the nightmares and doubts.

Max can't shake his doubts and flees to the depths of the Everglades to live in solitude with his guilt. After a year or so, the nightmares are slowly retreating, but canoeing back to his shack, he spots a bundle tangled in some tree roots. Looking back at him are the lifeless eyes of a dead child. Knowing a crime scene when he sees it, he heads for the ranger station. A squad of local detectives arrive and immediately see a suspect, a suspect with a history who might be the perp they've been looking for in the matter of 4 dead kids.

The western suburbs of south Florida are creeping into the edge of the Everglades and the cops think that any one of those hermits who inhabit the 'glades could be a suspect. His lawyer, a childhood friend with a stutter, tells him not to say a thing, but Max comes forward to answer the cops questions - bad idea. Max decides to at least see where the other victims were found and enlists a local hermit/pilot to fly him around in what turns out to be a sabotaged Cessena. The crash seriously injures the pilot and Max drags him through the swamp, bandages him up, and saves him, making him sort of a hero to the local lowlifes of the swamps.

The main lowlife is an elderly legend/WWII hero Nate Brown who asks Max to meeting to sort of mediate between the locals and the cops. Max meets with 4 strange guys, all of whom wear this strange knife in a scabbard. Looks like the cops had it right, sort of - an unknown man of the marsh really is trying to scare people from buying near the Everglade's border. Then another child goes missing.

Brown shows up at Max's shack telling Max the kid's alive, but he better come quick. Brown paddles them both about an hour-ish way deep in the 'glades to a shack more run down than Max's. The child is there, barely alive. Also there is one of the locals, dead by a stretched neck. The cops think they have their man, racked with guilt, dead by suicide.

Of course Max thinks otherwise. Why, there were 2 knives at the cabin and the perp was still wearing his, so Max grabs the knife, crime scene or not. During the investigation, Max's canoe was vandalized so he and his lawyer bud go shopping. While Max is checking out, his lawyer is having a 'Witness' moment (remember when the Amish kid recognizes the murderer in a newspaper clipping and the look on Harrison Ford's face?) by spotting the same knife in a display case. Turns out it's a rare German WWII weapon. Remember Nate Brown, the WWII hero? Brought back some war booty for his 'acquaintances' in the 'glades. And it flushes out the real culprit.

And the nightmares seem to be fading.

I've been trolling the Edgar awards website looking for new authors. King was the winner in 2003 for Best First Novel with this book and looked like a good bet for future efforts on my part. King has something like 6 Max Freeman novels and a couple standalone books, too all since 2o02. He's been busy. His best trait is his ability to set and describe the scene be it Philadelphia, the Everglades, or the never ending sprawl of south Florida, which he clearly despises - sort of a serious version of Carl Hiasson's tongue-in-cheek tales of Florida. It may not have the outstanding dialogue of Stella or Pelacanos, but after reading this, I think I know a whole lot more about the Everglades. I'll be back to learn more.

East Coast Don