Duplicity by Shawn Wilson

 It's been awhile since Brick Kavanaugh's last case of the young woman found floating in the Tidal Basin surrounding the Jefferson Memorial. That was a soul crushing case. So draining that Brick took his bartender's advise and set off for Ireland for an extended R&R . . . a week. Maybe two. How about three months? Doesn't really matter. He quit his job as a homicide detective for the DC Metro police. He has managed to kill some time with an Air Lingus flight attendant, Nora Breslin, who conveniently has the Ireland-USA routes.

But head back he must. To what, he's not sure. First stop will be to see his bartender/friend, Eamonn Boland, owner of the bar in his name. While catching up, Brick flips through his email and finds a letter from the Ass't Director of the School of Public Affairs at Lincoln University (a thinly disguised Georgetown University) wanting to know if he'd consider being an advisor/mentor to a few students. The task he's asked to lead the students through is an investigation of a cold case. 

Brick isn't crazy about the invite, but out of courtesy to the prof who tracked him down, he agrees to meet Prof Grace Alexander, at Boland's Mill Pub of course. The cold case project is an unsolved hit-run of a Lincoln University student some years back. Brick doesn't have any pressing job prospects so he says OK if his former boss is OK with it. Lieutenant Hughes will have to agree, and process some paperwork, to give Brick, no longer an employee, access to their records. 

That request goes fine and Brink takes the records home for his first review. As he skims through the case file, he quickly learns that the case may be tougher than envisioned because most everything of importance has been redacted.  

Nora has a Dublin-Chicago and asks Brick to join her for a weekend. She's been there a bunch and is showing Brick around. A lakeside bar's TVs are tuned to a news channel. Brick absent mindlessly glances to see the trailer describing the possible abduction of a DC detective's twin infants and mother. It's the family of his former partner on the force, Ron. 

So much for a quiet weekend in Chicago. Brick heads back to find a devastated Ron, Lt. Hughes, and a host of other cops at Ron's house still picking through every possible shred of evidence. 

Brick has to take a back seat to the police investigation, be moral support for Ron, investigate as best he can, given his status as a civilian. And he is still looking into the cold case. Each heat up with the cold case taking a very unexpected turn (does the term 'diplomatic immunity' mean anything to you?). 

This is my second Brick Cavanagh mystery and it's as an equal to Wilson's previous novel (Relentless, reviewed here in 2020). From where I sit, if one wants a solid police procedural, look for titles from Oceanview Publishing. I've read a bunch and have yet to be disappointed. Does this book may not break any new ground in the mystery genre? Probably not. But who cares? It's a quick, fun read and that's good enough for me. 

Like I've said before - pay attention to those publishers. I've yet to go wrong with Oceanview. 

ECD