Matt Coyle

No good deed goes unpunished.

Yesterday’s Echo by Matt Coyle is the 2014 Anthony Award winner for Best First Novel and the first book in the author’s Rick Cahill crime fiction series. The main character (Cahill), a disgraced former Santa Barbara police officer, had relocated to the town he grew up in after being accused, but never charged due to lack of any evidence, of the murder of his wife, Colleen. For the past eight years, he’s struggled to put a life together as the manager and show more part-owner of Muldoon’s Steakhouse in the La Jolla community of San Diego. However, a couple of good deeds at the restaurant one night put him in the crosshairs of some very powerful people involved in politics, blackmail, and murder.

Rick is a personable guy dealing with a tragic past that began in his childhood. He’s carrying a load of guilt since his wife’s murder, and although innocent of her murder, he feels responsible for her death. His father had been fired from the La Jolla Police Department when Rick was a boy and lived under a cloud for the rest of his life, though it appears he, too, was blamed for someone else’s actions. Both father and son were judged guilty in the public eye, and there is much yet to be uncovered in both cases in future novels.

I enjoyed Rick’s quick wit and wisecracking style, and the novel has a strong crime noir feel. The plot is complex, with several subplots unfolding throughout, some of which eventually converge in unexpected ways. The story is violent at times, and there’s shocking collateral damage that affects Rick’s loved ones. Scenes with Colleen’s father, who is convinced Rick is guilty of his daughter’s murder, are gut-wrenching, especially as you feel Rick is being truthful that he was not the one.

I recommend YESTERDAY’S ECHO to readers of crime fiction. show less

As good as the first, still dark, still excellent. Hard to put down book that held up to the re-read. Instead of a struggling bar/restaurant owner, this book is set years later and has our lead photographing the cheating for an investigation firm. He buddies up with a country lawyer, or gets sucked into the case anyway, and tries to right a perceived wrong. As always with this poor guy, his luck is tainted with crooked people, bad misfortunes, twists intentions, ironic results. There is a show more depressing death, and there are twists where the hero still stands up strong - if not conventionally - to put the world to a certain dark order again. show less

This is a first novel by the author in 2013, set in the La Jolla / San Diego area. It became the start of a series. It came to me highly recommended and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a crime story, a mystery, noirish and a bit hard-boiled in style (OK maybe more than a bit, but in the best of that pulpy tradition updated for today) and I liked it. There are a lot of familiar tropes here, even for someone like me who is not widely read in the genre. The author however has put together a show more good story that caught my interest pretty quick and made me as a reader want to know more about the tarnished ex-cop Rick Cahill. Love gets all tangled up in the makings of the story, but this is clearly crime fiction. If you like twists, this is twisty too. And yesterday does echo and the story gets wrapped up nicely if not believably.

It also has a great opening sentence: "The first time I saw her, she made me remember and she made me forget."

Not quite a "page-turner", but I didn't want to put it down and I read it in two days which for me is rather good for a 300 page novel. It has nice short chapters which is something I like for reading where I have easy breaks to step away. I'd recommend this to those who like stories in the detective fiction/police/mystery genre.

The more I thought about the book, the less pleased I was with the ending. In sum, the good guys are sometimes bad guys, the bad guys are sometimes good guys, and justice was not served. But it IS an exciting finish even if I have real doubts that it could finish the way it did. At least we find out why the main character carries so much self-hate around. show less

Rick Cahill book # 9

This author is definitely growing on me or should I say Rick Cahill does. Rick is a private investigator who has been running from his past. His has CTE, a disease caused by repeated head trauma that threatens his life and endangers those around him.

In this latest, Rick looks into Sara Bhandari, a business contact, who was murdered not long after he met her on a business lunch. The police believe she was another case of a serial rapist who has been terrorizing San Diego show more but Rick thinks otherwise and is determined to find the truth at any cost.....

My thoughts:

This 9th book reads well as a stand-alone. The author gives us just enough back stories to orient us without overwhelming the narrative.

This story is one tense and entertaining saga where the protagonist not only sets to know the truth but needs to deal with a dilapidating disease and personal drama at the same time. The tightly plotted story is fast-paced and entertaining. It centers on the murder of Sara who had asked Rick to look into abnormalities in handling background checks for the Defense Department. Of course this opened a huge can of worms: a serial rapist, police cover-ups, Chinese spies and a vast cast of bad guys as well as good ones. So much is going on but Mr. Coyle doesn’t miss a beat in his style: solid, active and mostly engaging. I love Rick, he is flawed but adorable. As a reader I soon was touched by his marital situation as well as his health issues, I wonder how long his life as a P.I will last.....

“Doomed Legacy” is definitely a winner that gives us a great story of suspense, intrigue and action...well-done Mr. Coyle.

I received this ARC from Oceanview Publishing via Netgalley for my thoughts. show less