Relentless by Shawn Wilson

The blooming cherry blossoms in DC are a prime tourist draw. Now DC doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to crime and the last thing that DC suits want is a body floating in the Tidal Basin; that body of water at the Jefferson Memorial that is surrounded by the cherry blossom trees. Brian (Brick) Kavanagh is a 10yr veteran of DC homicide. He and his less-than-a-year-Detective Ron Hayes draw the case. The young female victim appears to be Hispanic, but that's about all. Not much to go on. 

Brick (an old nickname for his red hair to go with his Irish heritage) lives in a NW DC studio condo and frequents local haunts for meals and drink. Especially Boland's, a local Irish pub. A recent immigrant from Guatemala works the kitchen. Good kid. Works hard. Trying to find his way in the USA. He fails to show for a couple shifts so Brick and one of the bar owners go to Jose's apartment only to find him beaten to death. The death is called in and the crime scene unit arrives. Brick sticks around even though it's not his case. In looking the crime scene over, Brick notices a photo on the fridge and is stunned to see that Jose is pictured with his Tidal Basin victim. She was Jose's sister. 

The investigation plods along slowly for various reasons. Brick's boss wants to made a splash with his superiors and orders up a task force of Metro DC police, ICE, FBI, and anyone else that'll improve his own visibility. No one is really happy about that, but what do you do? Within a couple days, ICE rounds up a guy named Garcia who actually confesses to the murders during his arraignment.

A bunch of subplots creep in, like Ron's wife is expecting twins, the other owner of Boland's wants to accompany the bodies back to Guatemala, Brick and the detectives assigned to Jose's murder don't play well together, not to mention the various lawyers that inhabit places like the DC court system, federal attorneys, and the public defender assigned to Garcia.

This is a pretty standard police procedural. While it's routine, I found it to be well written and realistic to what I imagine such investigations to be. Turns out that this is the debut novel of Shawn Wilson, just released in December 2019. She spent a career working in various areas of federal law enforcement in DC so her local geography is spot on. I wouldn't say that this is a top shelf debut, but I kind of liked it and if she continues with a series about Brick Kavanagh, I'd be interested. Solid if unspectacular. I sure wasn't sorry for the time invested to read this one. Give it a chance. You just might like this.

ECD