Turner Hahn and Frank Morales ate detectives faced with a couple of vicious homicide cases. A holocaust victim is assassinated and the investigation leads them to discover Mossad’s interest in the case, together with the FBI’s. In the second case the killing of a convenience store clerk unearths a software invention by the victim, one that makes a computer sentient. And there is more than that to it.
BR Stateham writes tight pared back prose that instantly creates an atmosphere.
“The old man was slumped across the open cavity of an accounts ledger, his face squashed between the pages of a thick accounting book. The body looked remarkably like a piece of trash carelessly tossed onto an old kitchen table.”
He then weaves a dense plot around two central characters who have steeped straight out of a Noir classic and throws the reader headlong into a maelstrom. He never lets up.
“I know it’s hard to think a flat-foot cop like me likes to read while he’s using the torque wrench on the heads of a ’55 Chevy Nomad station wagon. But that’s the way it is.”
There is a wry humour in his prose. It sucks you in as Stateham throws you the sucker punch. And this brilliant book is full of them. This is a fast, tight paced thriller that will keep you turning the pages, and it is a distinctively gritty and satisfying read.
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