Racing the Devil

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Report: Nashville private investigator Jared McKean has a son with Down syndrome, a best friend with AIDS, an ex-wife he can’t seem to fall out of love with, and a weakness for women in jeopardy—until one frames him for murder. His DNA and fingerprints are found at the murder scene. His voice is on the victim’s answering machine, and the victim was killed by a bullet from his gun. To make matters worse, his teen-aged nephew comes out of the closet and runs away to join a dangerous fringe of the Goth subculture. Now Jared must find a way to clear his name, hold his family together—and solve a case that could cost him his life.

My Review: What Jared McKean needs is a break. Not in a case, though that show more would certainly make a nice change; no, he needs Life to cut him a break. The, well let's be polite and call her a lady, who came on to him like gangbusters in the bar? A set-up. For...we don't know, neither does he, but it all feels hinky even as he's disporting himself.

And then we do. The former cop and now PI Jared is framed pretty damned thoroughly for murder, fingerprints, DNA, gun, every damn thing perfect. Except he didn't do it, wouldn't do it, and even his suspicious buddies in the Nashville, Tennessee, police detective squad are having a hard time seeing Jared as a murderer. But they have to go where the evidence leads them, and that's directly to Jared. Who needs to know who framed him, why they framed him, and what's at stake that makes it all make sense.

He has to go to some pretty seedy places in his past, as well as some really surprisingly fancy ones in the present, to get his answers, and the picture that emerges of Nashville isn't all that nice, but it is all that interesting and involving and well-crafted. There aren't any dull moments in Jared's life. And that's exactly the way the reader wants it to be.

I like mysteries, which I suppose comes under the “no shit, Sherlock” heading in Revelationspeak. I like the way the author of this first-of-a-series layers in the details the reader can use to feel the character's three-dimensionality. It wasn't a surprise to me that I enjoyed this book but it was a surprise to me how involved I became in Jared's world. I was deep in it with Maria, the ex-wife and mother of his son Paul, and her believable love for the man she simply can't live with, and part of that is a sense of her own frailty for having given birth to a son with Down's syndrome.

Jared's queer best friend Jay comes off the page as a total flamer and a mouthy queen. It's a pity he's got AIDS. Except he manages to stay healthier than Jared does, poor bastard, as he's mangled in a few different and terrible ways. Frank, his cop-lifetime boss and bud, has more wrinkles than a cheap suit. It's all very engrossing, and that's precisely how it ought to be. If a noir-tinged Nashville doesn't intrigue you, it's unlikely you're a mystery reader. If it does, hasten to your favorite bookery and get you one of these here. A solid, winning debut for the series.

Ratin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less

Carve out a chunk of free time to read this novel, because you won’t be able to put it down until you reach the end of this tale.

Set in Nashville, Tennessee, Racing the Devil is the first in the Jared McKean mystery series by Jaden Terrell. McKean is an ex-cop turned private detective who is framed for murder, in what looks like the perfect crime.

Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create what looks like solid evidence of McKean’s guilt. But even as he works to untangle the strands of evidence that he knows is false, he still can’t budge a legal system that wants to believe in his guilt. McKean takes on himself as a client and sets out to investigate the connections to the murdered woman and her family, and runs afoul of the show more pastor of the Church of the Reclamation, a decidedly chauvinistic individual who just may have a criminal past.

Author Jaden Terrell has created a protagonist whose humanity emerges with each page. Besides clearing his own name of murder, he has a network of family and friends who help him when they can, but they all need Jared McKean, too. McKean’s roommate is dying of AIDS, his seven year old son has Down’s Syndrome, and his teenage nephew has joined a Goth sub-culture and is breaking his father’s heart. Jared McKean does it all, but he is no superman.

Author Terrell writes in a tight, concise style that maintains the suspenseful pace throughout the book. Terrell – and main character McKean – are able to deal with issues such as prostitution and sexual abuse of children without descending into ugliness. Jared McKean is still good, and there is hope for him, and hope in his world.

I look forward to reading the next book in the series, A Cup Full of Midnight, which is due to be published later this year.

Originally published in Suspense Magazine show less

Jaden Terrell’s excellent debut mystery novel RACING THE DEVIL provides freshness to the niche genre that is the noir male private eye, while still giving the readers of niche everything they look for. Characters with troubled pasts, women with ulterior motives, sudden violence, but unlike much of noir, the protagonist, Jared McKean is far from a loner and has rich and interesting relationships with is family, child, roommate, friends and even horses.

Racing the Devil starts with the novel’s protagonist, Jared McKean, having an amorous encounter with a woman in a bar only to wake up two days later and discover he’s been framed for the murder of a woman he doesn’t know and it’s a doozy, witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, etc..

If that show more wasn’t bad enough, his personal life is maze of difficult relationships: his brother, who abandoned a promising dream career to raise Jared, is having issues with his Goth son; Jared’s roommate has AIDs; a duplicitous local hotshot reporter who had once been Jared’s girlfriend is all over the murder case; and the woman Jared loves is married to another man and she has custody of his beloved son Paul who has Down Syndrome. He also owns and loves horses, which plays nicely into the storyline. While Jared rushes to prove his innocence, his personal life is imploding.

The only weakness would be is that some of the action, though realistic and character revealing, was not tied tightly into the storyline. The strongest part of the novel is the way Terrell weaves in Jared’s murder case with his personal problems and tells the story in forward motion using only short, pertinent, and compelling back-flashes sparsely, and saving backstory for when you need to know it. Terrell also rarely relies on clichés and that makes her prose is richer and more engrossing.

Highly recommended for those who like mysteries and/or characters that have strong emotional connections to others.

(This review is based on an Advanced Review Copy provided by the publisher) show less

When an ex-cop turned PI is framed for murder, there are two paths for a book - either the author pulls it off or the book goes down in flames and repeats every single cliche that had ever been written on the topic. Terrell pulls it off.

Not that the book does not have its problems (the guy really annoys me with his acceptance of anything that happens to him as if he actually does not deserve anything good). Which is expected in a debut novel. What the book adds to these problems though are horses, complicated lives (the author explores homosexuality, health issues of all kinds, one directional love and professional issues and this is just the tip of the iceberg), beautiful women (but of course) and good friends. Part of the issues of show more the book were exactly in the too many things thrown together - it sounds as if the author decided to go for all or nothing and simply tackled any issue that he could think of. Which made the whole story less believable -- not that these things do not happen in real life in these amounts (maybe, occasionally) but in a novel, they just scream "too much".

Despite this the book is actually good and I will be interested to see where the series goes next. But I really hope that the next book won't bring more people with big problems that just need to have Jared accept and deal with. Or if it happens, that he will finally snap and do/say something. show less

Racing the Devil is the first in a new series of mystery books by Jaden Terrell (the second book A Cup Full of Midnight is already in the pipeline). Overall, I enjoyed the book. It has all the elements I look for in a mystery - the premise draws the reader in immediately, it is a fast, easy read that never loses momentum, there are enough red herrings and plot twists that I didn't guess the "real Killer" until the end, but there were just enough hints and foreshadowing that the reveal made perfect sense.

That said I had a few minor quibbles with the characterization of the hero Jared McKean. He;s a little to Mary Sueish for my taste. His son has Down's Syndrome (but he is never frustrated), his nephew is gay (he's so understanding) his show more roommate is HIV positive (he helps set him up on dates and visits a gay bar to help cheer him up), his dog is arthritic, he loves horses. It's just a little too much. He is clearly the male alter-ego of the author (who I presume is female despite the mysterious asexual photo and lack of pronouns in the author blurb). The character never feels quite authentic.

That said I enjoyed the story enough that I will give the second book in the series a try when it is published next year. show less

I really enjoyed this mystery and look forward to the next installment in the series. The primary character Jared McKean is a former police officer turned private eye. His relationship with the police is strained, he is divorced but is still in love with his ex-wife who has remarried, he is thoroughly devoted to his 8 year old son who has Downs, and he lives with a good friend who is gay and has Aids (although Jared is heterosexual). Jared is set-up for a brutal murder and must prove his innocence against very difficult odds. Thank goodness he still has a friend on the police force. The characters are well developed, the plot twists are excellent, and while I was not totally surprised by the ending it did come with a twist I did not show more expect. This is another book I found very hard to put down. I encourage you to give this one a try. show less

Why have I not heard of Jaden Terrell before now? I’ll admit the fact that is a Nashville resident and a published mystery writer is what drew me to this book and I’m so glad I got the opportunity.

This story moves along at a good pace, or to borrow an equestrian term, it moves at a smooth and steady gait. Terrell laid a great foundation for a series in this. Not too heavy handed and not too stingy. leaving you to imagine more on your own. Wackadoo story, without a doubt, but if you actually separated some of the threads, believable for the most part.

Dark undercurrents, bad things probably will happen, but I think that’s what the reader would want to see in the future for these characters. How will they deal with it and move on show more from here? show less