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rosseroo's review
4.0
I didn't love the plotting of the first book in the Leo Haggerty series (Embrace the Wolf), but I did find Haggerty a compelling enough character to pick up this second one. As in the first book, the private detective is hired to find a missing person, this time a 13-year-old girl from an affluent neighborhood near Alexandria, Virginia. Also like the first book, it follows a very traditional procedural path, as Haggerty follows standard methods to trace the girl's whereabouts. This takes him from the innocuous settings of teen life: a high school, a shopping mall, homes, to the sordid: seedy strip-clubs, hot-sheet motels, a bars of Route 1. What's harder for him to discern is why the girl ran away from home, although I suspect most readers will have a pretty keen idea fairly early on.
Haggerty's sidekick, a Medal of Honor-winning ex-Green Beret with a personal arsenal rivaling that of any survivalist, is a big presence in the book. One that allows him to tangle with some pretty nasty and violent characters throughout. Haggerty is one of those private eyes who isn't shy of getting his hands bloody if it means getting the job done. One thing that makes this series a little more interesting than others is that there's a nice level of introspection to Haggerty, it's both well written and realistic, not perfunctory navel-gazing. That's probably a testament to the author's day job as a clinical psychologist, and there's real insight there.
Another thing I like about the series is that there are consequences -- people get hurt, and sometimes quite gruesomely. The one main quibble I have is that one of the main villains is a huge African-American ex-football player named Leroy, and the combination of details leaves a tinge of racism in the mouth -- but maybe that's just me. The book also has a subplot involving a budding romance Leo has with a freelance writer, which is also handled quite well. All in all, an slight improvement from Embrace the Wolf -- I will now seek out A Tax in Blood to see what happens next.
Haggerty's sidekick, a Medal of Honor-winning ex-Green Beret with a personal arsenal rivaling that of any survivalist, is a big presence in the book. One that allows him to tangle with some pretty nasty and violent characters throughout. Haggerty is one of those private eyes who isn't shy of getting his hands bloody if it means getting the job done. One thing that makes this series a little more interesting than others is that there's a nice level of introspection to Haggerty, it's both well written and realistic, not perfunctory navel-gazing. That's probably a testament to the author's day job as a clinical psychologist, and there's real insight there.
Another thing I like about the series is that there are consequences -- people get hurt, and sometimes quite gruesomely. The one main quibble I have is that one of the main villains is a huge African-American ex-football player named Leroy, and the combination of details leaves a tinge of racism in the mouth -- but maybe that's just me. The book also has a subplot involving a budding romance Leo has with a freelance writer, which is also handled quite well. All in all, an slight improvement from Embrace the Wolf -- I will now seek out A Tax in Blood to see what happens next.
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