City of Echoes by Robert Ellis

Matt Jones has just been promoted to homicide detective in the LAPD and is planning to meet his mentor and long time friend, Kevin Hughes for dinner to celebrate.  Hughes, a detective in North Hollywood served with Jones in Afghanistan and encouraged him to move to LA and become a cop after his military discharge.  But before Hughes arrives at the restaurant, Jones receives a call from Lt. Bob Grace, his new supervisor.  Grace assigns him to a homicide only a block from the restaurant.  Jones texts Hughes that the dinner is postponed and heads to the murder scene.  The victim was shot several times in the face and is unidentifiable but Jones hears a cell phone chirp and finds his own message received on the victim’s phone.  The victim is his friend, Kevin Hughes.

Jones is shaken but nothing about this seems right to him.  A camera overlooking the parking lot where Hughes is killed shows a hooded robber shooting the detective execution style, not necessary if robbery is the motive.  Jones’ new partner is uncooperative and seems too close to his boss, Lt. Grace.  Hughes partner, Frankie Lane has his own theories about the killer but won’t share them with Jones without further proof.  Hughes’ wife, Laura seems devastated by her husband’s brutal death but soon lures Jones into a physical relationship.  Jones appears underqualified to solve this murder but no one is more determined to find the truth.

City of Echoes pales in comparison to Robert Ellis’ usual performance.  It falls into the category of an airplane book at best.  It’s entertaining but comes up short on plausibility.  Assigning a detective to solve his best friend’s murder would never happen, regardless of manpower issues.  Once plausibility comes into question, so many other events just don’t smell right... implausibility spreads like B.O. from an overworked taxi driver… your mind can’t focus elsewhere until the ride is over. 

Murder Season by Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis’ Murder Season is a compelling mystery thriller.  His heroin LAPD homicide detective Lena Gamble returns for her third murder investigation filled with danger, political pitfalls, and multiple twists and turns.

Lena Gamble is assigned as lead detective to a double homicide in Hollywood’s hottest celebrity hangout, Club 3 AM.  One victim is the club’s owner, Johnny Bosco who has connections to LA’s district attorney.  The other is 25-year old Jacob Grant who was recently acquitted for raping and murdering his 16 year old neighbor, Lily Hight.  Grant escaped a guilty verdict on a technicality so the media has levied its own condemnation.  Lily’s father, Tim Hight is caught on the club’s surveillance video while leaving the building near the time of the murders.  While the press applauds the father’s supposed revenge that the authorities could not muster, Lena isn’t convinced Tim Hight is guilty.  After searching both Hight’s and Grant’s homes, she discovers Jacob and Lily had an adult relationship and that Lily was not the innocent young woman portrayed in the news.  Lena finds she must first reinvestigate and solve Lily’s murder in order to solve her own case.  In doing so, improprieties of the DA’s office as well as the LAPD are uncovered.  Lena is forced to make snap judgments on whom she can trust within city government while fearing for her job, her life, and the lives of those involved who know too much.

Murder Season is a compelling story and Ellis is a master of misdirection.  He pulls you in, convinces you the outcome is clear, then reveals another villain.  This story has more twists and turns than Mulholland Drive…. perhaps too many.  I bought into it right up to the last chapter where he finally crosses the line for me.  Still a great read but he needs to back it off a notch…fewer hairpin turns more straight aways.    He gave a first class murder mystery an implausible feel in a heartbeat.  To me this is what will keep Ellis from being the next Michael Connelly.

The Dead Room by Robert Ellis

Have you heard this story line before? Beautiful women keep disappearing, and the wrong guy gets blamed. In this case, the wrong guy is mailman, a true asocial weirdo who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he happened to have an interest in the last woman who was killed. Then, he was seen fleeing from the scene of her murder, so he must have been the one, right? The mailman happened to be the brother-in-law of a hot shot attorney who is simply embarrassed that he’s related to the guy. He just wants the matter to go away so his reputation and his family’s social standing won’t be tarnished. He hands the case to one of his rooky attorneys, Teddy Mack, a guy who hates criminal law and who came to the firm to do real estate law. Suddenly Teddy is in over his head with an ambitious DA who wants to be governor and sees this case as one that will bring him needed fame. Of course, Teddy turns out to be a man of integrity, so he won’t buckle under the pressure of his boss, the DA, and the press which wants to hang his client. It’s my opinion that you don’t need to read this book. The innocence of the mailman-bros-in-law was clear from the start of the book, and there were no unanticipated twists and turns – really a pedestrian effort by the author in plot and character development. I won’t give up on Ellis yet since I liked his first book and Midwest Dave is a big fan, but he’s got a strike against him for making my power rotation of authors.

Access to Power by Robert Ellis

After Midwest Dave raved about Robert Ellis’ books, I decided to give him a try, starting with his first novel from 2001. Frank Miles is a political consultant in Washington, the man who got the current president elected. He is a partnership with Woody Darrow, and together they started with candidates no one knew, and then gradually worked their way up. As time went along, politics got dirtier. “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” In the last election cycle, Frank got Helen Pryor elected over Ozzie Olson, but he cheated to do so. When Ozzie emerged from a porn house while looking for his runaway neice, his fly was stuck open, and Frank used a picture of that to suggest that Ozzie was a bad man, which he was not. Ozzie lost the election in a landslide and then went on a two-year bender, intent on destroying Frank. Now, Mel Merdock has hired Frank to help him win the Senate seat in Virginia over Lou Kay. Kay is a good man, but Mel is not, something Frank only slowly comes to realize. Not only are their dirty politics going on at the highest level, but there are murders happening, including to Frank’s partner, Woody. The money at stake is huge, and Miles, Darrow & Associates get 15% off the top, so Frank stands to make a lot more money with Woody out of the way. He stands accused of being the one causing all the mayhem. It’s a good story, a very good plot with strong characters. I’ll read more of Ellis.

The Lost Witness by Robert Ellis

The Lost Witness by Robert Ellis is this author's second crime thriller with main character, Lena Gamble the maverick detective and member of LAPD’s elite Robbery Homicide Division.

Lena had brilliantly and courageously solved the case of a brutal psychopathic killer only months earlier but unfortunately offended and embarrassed some department big wigs in the process. Since then she has been assigned to mundane cases to discourage her and force her resignation. Suddenly Chief Logan requests her to work a particularly brutal murder where the victim is surgically sliced into pieces, stuffed in garbage bags and placed in a dumpster. Lena is annoyed with the chief and his pompous adjutant, Lt. Ken Klinger when they order her to give them frequent progress reports but she relishes the chance to work an important case.

Security cameras pick up images of a young man witnessing the dumping of the body but the witness does not come forward. The murdered woman is initially thought to be a prostitute living alone in a rundown apartment near Venice beach. But the name of the person who had lived at that address is found to be deceased and the recent dead girl an impostor. The detective discovers the victim was not a prostitute but the disgruntled mother of a child who died from an FDA approved drug manufactured by Anders Dahl Pharmaceutical. As the evidence leads Lena to Anders Dahl Pharmaceutical and CEO, Dean Tremell, the heat is turned up on Lena by her superiors. She learns that Tremell, a billionaire, is a strong financial supporter of many politicians including the DA and a U.S. Senator. A reporter tells Lena of a conspiracy theory he has involving Tremell’s company, a pediatrician, and a former U.S. Senator. As more bodies turn up connected to the conspiracy, Lena finds her own life in jeopardy and doesn’t know who she can trust even within her own department.

Greed, conspiracy, brutal slayings, sexual depravity, self serving politicians: Ellis employs all the tantalizers. That combined with his heroine’s relentless pursuit of justice with disregard for personal welfare, ignite this supercharged novel and leave you wanting more. Welcome to my A list Mr. Ellis.

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.