City of Fire by Robert Ellis

City of Fire by Robert Ellis is a fast moving crime thriller based in LA complete with a crazed serial killer, an obsessed young woman detective with issues of her own, and a bureaucratic, politically snarly city government.

Lena Gamble has led a tough life. Orphaned at 16, she and her musically talented younger brother leave Denver in their late father’s Chevy Suburban to avoid the system and foster homes. They end up in LA, find jobs and begin a promising new life. Lena works her way through college and the police academy while her brother forms a rock band, signs a record deal and is well on his way to becoming a rock star when he is murdered. As a police officer, Lena can’t accept that her brother’s murder is not solved and is motivated to become a detective, a first rate detective. Her street smarts and drive are soon recognized by the department and she is fast tracked into the elite Robbery Homicide Division. She and her more seasoned partner, Hank Novak draw the most gruesome and politically charged murder cases in the city.

In the first case where she is lead investigator, a woman is raped then stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife. While the most likely suspect, her husband is pressured for a confession, the evidence shows a third person was present in the home that night and likely waited to observe the husband’s reaction to his wife’s murder. While the bureaucrats want a swift solution to improve their numbers, Lena’s investigation uncovers other rapes and attempted rapes where the perpetrator lingered at the crime scene to observe the loved one’s reaction. Soon another murder with a similar MO proves Lena’s hunch correct and to the chagrin of the department a serial killer is confirmed. The media names him Romeo. Then another woman is brutally killed in a similar way. This time however, the lover is also found dead of apparent suicide next to the woman’s body. The lover was Tim Holt, the best friend and band member of Lena’s deceased brother. Devastated and confused, Lena tries to separate her personal feelings from her work and move forward. The LAPD bureaucracy forces the conclusion that Tim committed suicide because the horror of seeing his brutally murdered lover brought back the guilt of murdering David Gamble, Lena’s brother, five years earlier. Lena doesn’t buy that Tim murdered her brother and while the LAPD has called a press conference to announce their finding, Lena is summoned to yet another brutal murder, the MO again implicating Romeo. By following her hunches and employing department forensic services to confirm those hunches, Lena tracks down the psychopathic killer. While her courage, strong sense of equal justice for all, and obsession to solve crime is coveted and sorely needed by the LAPD, her disregard for intra-department politics proves her a maverick and misfit with an uncertain future….but the perfect heroine for a crime novel.

Robert Ellis is an up and comer. His use of a psychopathic serial killer and the obsession and personal connection of the detective in charge remind me of early Michael Connelly (The Concrete Blond.) Not a bad similarity for a new writer. I’m anxious to see how this character, Lena Gamble develops in his next thriller and the one after that.