Silent Echo
Jim Coleman, the first-person hero of this unusual novel, has one up on all those flawed detectives sulking through the genre. He’s dying. In fact, he’s darned near dead and so debilitated one wonders if he’ll make it back for the next chapter. He’d like, he says, to drift off snoozing in the sun. But he was a detective once. When a friend begs for Coleman’s help, what’s he to do? Especially since the murder victim was his long-ago lover. And the client? The “friend” who stole her from him. The details of the crime have spooky parallels with another murder—Coleman’s brother’s, 22 years ago. Coleman wears himself down, and the reader out, by wrapping himself in blankets to go question anyone who knows anything. This is a novel of detection, with clues gathered until a pattern forms and the killer is exposed. But there’s a bigger point, too: that Coleman can die in peace, now that detective work has solved at least one of life’s mysteries. Powerful stuff, to be sure, but readers should be prepared for a reading experience akin to a hospice visit. --Don Crinklaw