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

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