Having read all of Mr. Kane's books, I was surprised to see this pop up in my Kindle "Authors You Follow" list. Hoping it was not the last Tanner, I reviewed the blurb. I most certainly did not look at the page count. The page count is almost three times his usual series. I didn't notice. I read straight through, literally not stopping to eat. This is nothing like any of Mr. Kane's books. No assassins. No bounty hunters. Only a good murder mystery in a very small town. Several murders, in fact. The first will not shock the reader.
Sometimes, the murdered person deserves it. In this case, the victim surely did. However, the murder spree continues. The reader knows what happened to the first victim. The others? Mr. Kane gives us so many others with reason and opportunity, leading us into the underbelly of small-town New Jersey.
John Beckett (never Mr. Beckett, never John, just Beckett) has worked hard all of his life to prove he is nothing like his parents: an alcoholic father and a schizophrenic mother. He now has his name on businesses all over town. The one he is most proud of is MacKenzie-Beckett Construction Company. Mr. MacKenzie took Beckett under his wing and taught him all about the construction business. After MacKenzie died, Beckett kept the MacKenzie name on the company. Least he could do, considering Mr. MacKenzie's daughter married Beckett and changed her name.
Beckett and the love of his life, Laura, have been married 20 years when the book opens. Beckett discovers Laura had, unfortunately, had an affair with the wrong man. That man started blackmailing Laura, until Beckett finds out. The blackmailing stopped when Beckett returns home one night and finds Laura dead. The reader knows Beckett didn't kill her, but the chief of police believes he did. The chief had loved Laura for years until Laura dumped him for Beckett. The chief is convinced Beckett killed her and had Beckett arrested for her murder. He can barely control his anger that instead of Laura marrying the chief, she chose Beckett.
Although Beckett repeatedly requests a lawyer, the chief transfers Beckett between jails effectively hiding Beckett until his first appearance. Unbeknownst to Beckett or the chief, his right-hand man at the construction company hired the best lawyer for Beckett he could find. Alexis Weller. She finally tracks Beckett down, despite the chief's playing games with Beckettʼs whereabouts. The evidence looks bad for Beckett, especially once cadaver dogs find a body on the site of the construction company.
Here, Mr. Kane's writing shows his ability to play with his readers' heads, so sneakily he puts his readers through the wringer as he deftly changes the whodunit until the reader is completely sure they know what happened until they don't. The characters are all tightly written. No three words were used when one would do.
There are two characters who stand out as oddly out of place until the chief's brother falls in love with one. Ah, not so out of place as I once thought. Although I knew who the author is, I recognized some of his "tells" and would have realized it was Mr. Kane. Don't worry about the page length. There are no extraneous words. Plan to read it nonstop. If you like authors (of any genre) who play head games with their readers, this book is for you. Waiting a year for the next one is going to drive me crazy, especially with the last Tanner coming out.
OR
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2024
- Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2024
Top reviews from other countries
- DebbieGReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2024
A brilliant “Who Done It?” !
- Mitch EarlReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2024
A good book, but not something I expected from Remington Kane
