John C. Dalglish

This is a fast-paced, short novel, just over four hours. A suburban housewife is murdered on the steps of her front door, and investigation shows no apparent motive. When her son is shot in front of the home a few days later, Jason Strong and Vanessa Lane have new questions to ask, starting in some seemingly unlikely places.

There's a strong story here, and good characters. Both male and female characters are well handled. It's enough to make me believe Dalglish is young enough to have grown show more up in a world where the personhood of female people is just assumed! (Hey, sorry, but it's a nice change to have seen happen over the course of my lifetime.)

Sadly, this makes it extra noticeable that the narrator, while not bad, does not serve the writing here especially well. He reads all the male parts in a very strong, manly voice. No, that doesn't really convey it. The narrator reads the male parts in A Strong, MANLY Voice! It's mildly annoying, though after the start, it never kicked me out of the story.

The audiobook is still well worth listening to. It may be even easier to lose yourself in the print edition, though.

In an overall enjoyable book, I do have one criticism for Mr. Dalglish, though. Jason and Vanessa discover that the possible villain has posted to Facebook from two public library branches. They visit the two branches, where library staff hand over the required user information--on everyone using the internet from the library in the relevant timeframes, not even information on one particular user--without even asking why, much less asking for a warrant.

Librarians are professionals. We have professional and ethical standards, and your library information is private and protected. The government and its agents don't get to waltz in and browse through it, any more than they can get your phone data or the IP address from which you posted to Facebook without a warrant. The Facebook example isn't random; it's a point explicitly made in the story that not only do they need a warrant to get the Facebook info, but the warrant needs to be as narrow as possible. And Facebook is run by geeks and business people, not by members of a profession for whom freedom of access to information is a core belief. That means that no, Mr. Dalglish, we do not hand over to police information on what library users are reading or when they access the internet on library computers, or what they look at when they do, unless they have a warrant for that information.

And the police in this story had the information they needed to get that warrant. It wasn't even "for the plot," but just because Mr. Dalglish, like so many others, thinks we are file clerks and baby sitters, not professionals with professional standards and professional ethics.

This made me angry, and I'm sorry about that. This really is an enjoyable book. But that doesn't make it okay for a writer to take the time to get it right about what Facebook needs to hand over your information, and then utterly disregard that for the people who are actually educated in saying no to police officers who might just want to go on a fishing expedition. Our professional standards forbid cooperating with that, and in many states that non-cooperation without a warrant is also the law. Maybe not in Texas. But even in Texas, librarians are still professionals, with professional standards and professional ethics.

Recommended anyway.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the author. show less

John Dalglish’s short but intense novella, For My Brother, reads like a criminal minds episode and it is up to you to figure out if Donnie is sane or not as he plots his mission in this exciting thriller that may keep you thinking long after the story has been read…what would you do to avenge your brother’s senseless death?

See more at http://www.fundinmental.com

Boston Police Officer Danny Sullivan has just gotten his promotion to Detective, something his father and grandfather never achieved in their careers. He, his wife, and his whole family are thrilled.

But his first case with his new, much more experienced partner, is a missing woman, a nurse at Boston Medical Center, who very shortly turns up dead. She had previously reported a prowler, but there is little evidence to go on. All the usual suspects, her boyfriend, her ex-husband, her coworkers, show more have alibis, and just don't seem good fits for what happened.

Then a second woman vanishes, and is soon found dead, in the same place the first woman's body was found. There's a superficial similarity, in height, dark eyes, dirty blonde hair. Both bodies, and the site they were left at, are remarkably "clean," the only possible clue being a single footprint, indicating that their killer may have been wearing boat shoes. Oh, and she'd reported a prowler recently, too.

When Danny takes it on himself to look at the last year's worth of prowler reports, he finds a recent large uptick--from women who have dark eyes and dirty blonde hair, who are about the same height as the two murder victims. When he begins to suspect that the killer could be a cop, he knows he's treading on very dangerous ground.

Danny's dilemma, as well as the strain on his wife, nine months pregnant and due any day now, from his long hours, is very well handled. What's also well handled is the setting. Often when a book is set in Boston, I wind up wincing every few minutes because what we get is Boston As Seen On TV, not the real city. I don't know whether Dalglish has a Boston background, or just does really good research, but nothing leaped out at me as wrong. The few times I even had a question, a few seconds on Google showed me that he'd gotten it right. (For instance, a parish in Southie that has changed its name in recent years, and a T station that's on a part of the system I've never used regularly.)

It's a good, solid, police procedural, with real tension and good characterization. On top of that, it gets a city I know and love right for a change!

I bought this audiobook. show less

CROSSOVER(Christian Adventure) (THE CHASER CHRONICLES Book 1)
Starts out with the PI and he's taped to his chair, big headache and something, a ghost shape is in front of him telling him he will have a choice to make.
He learns a few days later he can either follow Jesus or go after the runners and make them crossover. There are chasers and this ghost wants him to become one...
This book is out there as far as my beliefs but was a good read because the author describes things in such detail show more you feel as if you are there.
Loved all the action, adventure and investigating as we got to go visit in several places.
Received this book free on Amazon and this is my honest opinion. show less