by T. E. Woods
Random House Publishing Group - Alibi (June 10 2014)
284 pages - 2.99 $
In the white-knuckle follow-up to her explosive debut novel, The Fixer, T. E. Woods returns with another tense, intricate thriller.
What do you say, Morton Grant, Chief of Detectives? You got what it takes to find me? Show me a move. . . . Or I’ll have to show you one of mine.
A little more than a year after the Fixer killings, Detective Mort Grant of the Seattle PD once again has his hands full. In the last four months, seven men have been murdered in seedy pay-by-the-hour motels: first strangled, then tied with rope and set on a bed of crushed mothballs, with a red lipstick kiss planted on their foreheads. Speculation abounds that the killer is a prostitute who’s turning her tricks into dead men. The press has taken to calling her “Trixie.”
As Mort follows scant leads in the case, he can’t help but feel continued guilt over his involvement with the Fixer. Though the public holds her up as a folk hero, a vigilante who seeks justice when the system fails, Mort cannot shake the fact that serious crimes have been committed. And though legend says she has vanished, Mort knows exactly where the Fixer is—and he’s conspiring to keep her hidden.
As Trixie strikes again, Mort suddenly finds himself and his family in the crosshairs. Because these new murders are not random, and their perpetrator is hell-bent on luring Mort into a sick and twisted game. If he’s not careful, he’s going to need Fixing.
What's about that book
I found it nice to meet again with Mort and Lydia, two characters I enjoyed in The Fixer. Mort's son also plays a more important role which is very nice, since in the first volume he seemed to be a very nice guy! (He even married a French girl... so he's necessarily a good guy, mwahaha!) Among the new character, Trixie of course, hateful to perfection but also a female character who becomes closed to Mort... and there TE Woods plays well with innuendo and misunderstandings, so that one begins to be sure to have found Trixie to better realize that one's been having.
There are two parallel stories in this book, two investigations that meet at one point, one bait to another. The first follows Trixie and the leads to find her. The second follows the murder of the owner of a basketball team. I must admit that I struggled to get interested in the second story, mainly because we follow an awful lot the basketball team before the murder. I couldn't see the point to know in detail the sultry life of the owner, his wife's depression, or even attend a basketball game live, with a lot of technical terms. It happens regularly in TV series that an inspector follow several investigations at the same time and this is often done well but here I often asked "but what they have to do with the story those ones? "
A third story is also present in this book and it's about Lydia who is recovering from her near death (read The Fixer!) This part is very interesting and allows you to see a more human side of Lydia. I found it very good how she "fixes" the problem she encounters. Lydia manages to find back the sensations she felt when she Fixed things while finding a new way to do it. The character evolves and it's cleverly done. Once again, the author confuses us by leaving us guessing what will happen... to twist the situation better.
In a nutshell
Basketball fans will enjoy reading this book, the characters are well written, the story is going well but, for my part, the Trixie investigation would have sufficed. This is a 3.5 / 5 for me.
Warning: An e- galley of this title was provided to me by the publisher. No review has been promised and chronic above is an unbiased review of the novel.
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