To say that Jesse Collins, former FBI agent and current San Diego detective, is a wounded man would be an understatement. He's a drunk, plain and simply. Was offered 'early retirement' by the FBI, got lucky with sort of a pity hire by a friend in the SDPD, his wife left for Boulder - told him to all her when he'd been sober for 90 days - 'Just one' means nothing. Hungover is his normal state. He pukes, pisses, and craps blood, routinely cracks his head on the toilet, eats like crap, doesn't sleep as much as he passes out. His partner Fig is a bit of an enabler and crime tech Erica keeps trying to get him back into AA.
Rich guy in a pricey car is found in a La Jolla garage, slumped over the steering wheel in a pose that Jesse knows all too well. Except for one thing. This guy's balls have been blown off. Clues? Plenty. They can ID the gun and bullets, have fingerprints, blond curly hair fragments, DNA, footprints. But nothing in any local of national databases.The killer has just vanished.
Jesse is the lead because, in spite of his alcoholism, he's still a dang good detective. A friend of his Chief is the head dog in Charlotte. A local restaurant owner is found in a parking garage. Same MO. Based on the similarities, Jesse is thinking a wronged woman correcting old wrongs done to her.
And he still drinks . . . a lot . . . and frequently . . . but now he has to go to Cape Cod. Another guy, same MO. Another chance to either blow it and get drunk or start showing everyone he can handle it.
He screws up again . . . and ends up in jail in the modern day version of the drunk tank . . . rock bottom. But Fig has found a link between the 3 victims. All were students for a time at a small college in NH. So it's back on a plane headed east. The noose is tightening, if only by a little. The killer is tracked to NJ. So now Jesse, Fig, and Erica head for the NJ coast. Jesse finds a hot source, follows it up and comes face to face with this 'woman scorned.'
Smith takes the reader back and forth between the existence of a world-class drunk and a decent detective trying, very poorly, to get sober. 'They' say to write about what you know and the author blurb says he is grateful to be free of drugs and alcohol. Not pretty.
I'd put this into my partner West Coast Don's category of 'airplane books'. A quick read that breaks little new ground. And it wouldn't even take a coast to coast flight. Maybe LAX to ORD. Not too long, not too demanding. As presented, expect a sequel. Maybe I'll check it out, maybe I won't. Jesse wasn't that enthralling for me to breathlessly wait for the next installment. Who knows.
ECD
No comments:
Post a Comment