Prior Bad Acts

The horrible, brutal murder of a mother and her two foster children is the centerpiece of this thriller. Drifter and petty criminal Karl Dahl is assumed to be the perpetrator. After all, he has a history of smaller sexual crimes from peeping to exposing himself in public. But Judge Cary Moore isn't going to let those past Prior Bad Acts be presented in the current case.

This decision infuriates Detective Stan Dempsey who found his life changed by the crime. He's a loner who lived for the job but his obsession with this case has him on desk duty and on his way out the door of the police force short of the time needed for his thirty year pension.

When Judge Moore is assaulted in the parking garage where she keeps her car outside the court show more building, Kovac and Liska get the case despite the fact that neither of them are fond of the judge's rulings which seem to bend too much to the criminal's side. As Kovac gets closer to the judge and her five-year-old daughter, Liska is looking into the family of the murdered woman and coming up with troubling things.

Kovac begins to suspect that the Judge's husband might have hired someone to attack his wife. Their marriage is hanging on by a thread and he has been supporting a girlfriend. His career as a film producer never took off and he feels overshadowed by his wife, the judge.

Then Karl Dahl escapes from prison and focuses on Judge Moore who he sees as an angel who is on his side.

This thriller had a wide assortment of probable villains and I was led astray by a number of red herrings before the case finally came to its thrilling conclusion. I liked the banter between Kovac and Liska and the other police detectives. I'm glad that there are five other thrillers starring Kovac and Liska. show less

I really enjoyed the third book in the Kovac and Liska series. We have Kovac and Liska involved in a case that involves a judge (Judge Carey Moore) that is attacked after giving out a controversial ruling related to a defendant's prior bad acts not being allowed to be introduced to a jury when he goes on trial for the murder of woman and her two foster kids.

Kovac is at first not looking forward to the assignment. He doesn't care for Judge Moore now that she is a judge. When she was a prosecutor many in the police force liked her. They thought they had a shoo-in now when they brought defendants to appear before her. She quickly disabused them of that notion by not showing favoritism to the prosecutor or defendant. I do love how for Kovac show more that is a betrayal. He ends up liking Carey though when he sees how she is with her daughter and he realizes that something is up with her marriage.

Liska is still dealing with juggling her job and her personal life. Being a mother to two boys with an absent ex, Liska keeps wondering is it fair to still do homicides and not switch to something that will keep her at home more.

Honestly the partnership between Kovac and Liska is what keeps me reading this series. They get each other and the other detectives in homicide run together like a very well tuned machine.

For the first time ever though we get to see a slightly out of control Kovac in this one. He is very focused on Judge Moore's husband and you start to see that Kovac may be dealing with a bit of a "crush" for her despite how he first felt about her.

I do think that the secondary characters were developed very well. We have the man that many want to see dead for murder (Karl Dahl) we also have Kovac unraveling key players involved with Moore's husband. And we have a detective who had to walk through the house and find three dead people who now haunt him who is focused on getting justice. And we also get a very quick appearance by Kate Quinn (formerly Conlan) who we now assume is married to John Quinn based on what Kovac reveals.

The writing was great and so was the flow.

The main reason why I didn't give this five stars though is that there was still the unanswered question related to Judge Moore's husband. It is just left dangling. I purposely re-read "The 9th Girl" after this and it does reference this book/case and Judge Moore so that was nice. I just wish that Hoag had wrapped up all loose ends in this one. show less

Detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska from DUST TO DUST are back for an encore peformance. This time their investigation involves one of Minneapolis's most grisly crimes, the murder a mother and her two foster children. Judge Carey Moore's decision to disallow suspect's Karl Dahl's prior criminal record has upset many in the community. Judge Moore is mugged in the parking garage and later threatened. To make matters worse Karl Dahl escaped from prison. Now Kovac and Liska must find Dahl , protect Judge Moore and apprehend a rogue cop while continuing their on-going investigation of the Haas case.

Tami Hoag delivers a standard crime thriller, but with engaging characters and a well-paced plot. A couple of warnings-leave enough time to read show more it and the violence is rather graphic. Weak stomachs beware. show less

WOW! This one kept me up all night!

I’ve been a Tami Hoag fan for years and she has never let me down when I want an enjoyable, fast-paced thrilling read. In Prior Bad Acts she gives you enough twists and turns you’ll feel you’re on a roller coaster without brakes!

I love Tami’s humor and realistic dialogue, and her character development is 4-dimensional. I was ‘in love’ with these characters in Ashes to Ashes, and then Dust to Dust, and am ecstatic that they’re back. Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are awesome protagonists with sizzling chemistry. Hoag has a winning team!

Prior Bad Acts is one of my favorites and if you’re new to Tami's novels, I highly recommend you pick up a copy, curl up in a chair with the doors locked and show more settle in for a suspenseful ride. She really knows how to tell a good story! Kudos, Tami!

Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
author of Divine Intervention show less

I just really, really love Kovac and Liska. This one was heavy on the Kovac and I really enjoyed it. The book was a little slow to start and was on the violent side, but kept you guessing and kept you on the edge of your seat in the latter part of the book. A good solid enjoyable read.

I'm not a fan of novels that read more like screenplays than they do novels, and I find myself avoiding authors who have fallen into that bad habit. Writers like James Patterson, Michael Crichton and Dan Brown (among others) come immediately to mind. I find, too, that books with 60 or 70 short, choppy chapters will almost always fall into this type and that's why I've only read one Tami Hoag novel other than Prior Bad Acts. So I decided to take a different approach with this one and chose the audio book version rather than the more than 500-page printed version of the novel. And I enjoyed it because it was perfectly suited to the way that I listen to audio books in fifteen minutes spurts three or four times a day. As with all audio show more books, the "performer" can make all of the difference, and actor Holter Graham uses his voice to good effect in bringing the Prior Bad Acts characters to life and in setting the various moods of the novel.

When the suspected killer of a woman and two small children escapes police custody after a judge rules that his "prior bad acts" are not admissible evidence in his pending trial, Minneapolis detectives find themselves in for a wild ride. Not only are they faced with recapturing the escaped suspect, they also have to work the brutal assault of the judge who ruled in the escapee's favor and they realize that innocent people will continue to die until they are able to resolve the case. Complicating matters is the fact that one of their own has gone bad and may be involved in the situation and that one of the detectives is falling in love with the judge he is trying to protect.

My reading habits are very different from my listening habits and I don't think that I would have actually enjoyed reading this book and, in fact, would never have picked it up in the first place. But the multiplicity of short chapters that would have made it an unpleasant reading experience for me is precisely what resulted in Prior Bad Acts being the kind of diversion that I needed at 5:30 every morning as I trudged off to another day in the office.

Rated at: 3.0 in audio version show less

This is fast, detailed and frightening. A super thriller that had me hooked from the outset. There are the obvious love interests but in this case it feels more natural than cliched.

Carey Moore is a Judge who has worked very hard to get where she is. Faced with Karl Dahl who is deemed to be a brutal killer (the crime is truly horrific) she is the only one who seems to be preventing him being kept in custody. She hits the media spotlight when she rules that his prior bad acts are inadmissable.

Detective Sam Kovac and his partner Nikki Liska are called in as protection. Dahl escapes and this thriller begins. Great characters, plot and narrative; this novel is difficult to put down. Hoag's writing involves the reader and occasionally some show more chapters begin with a character picking up from another character in a previous chapter.

It is difficult to discuss too much of the plot for this novel without spoiling it but (as is not always the case) the praise quotes are generally accurate. Highly enjoyable from the great beginning to a thrilling ending. show less