Death Never Sleeps

Image of Death Never Sleeps (Chris Hunter Books)
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
February 24, 2015
Publisher/Imprint: 
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Pages: 
314
Reviewed by: 

“. . . enough twists and turns and red herrings to please any mystery reader.”

Any police procedural by David Grace is as dependable as the sun rising in the east. His crime novels are always well written in concise, unambiguous prose that nonetheless conveys a complexity of plot and character that other writers in this genre should consider emulating. To be clear and complex as the same time is a gift not given to many writers.

Veteran homicide Detective James, “Big Jim” Donegan and his partner, Detective Chris Hunter are called to a particularly gruesome crime scene. Half of a local call girl is found in a wood chipper. Her other half is, well, already chipped one might say.

“Never was built to do a load like this,” the Parks & Rec guy muttered, shaking his head at the misuse of his equipment.”

While the Parks & Rec guy’s comment may have true, it does nothing to provide a clue as to who murdered the prostitute. Was it her pimp, Johnny-Boy, a particularly slimy example of humanity? Or was it an unhappy client?

Like real-life cops, Big Jim and Chris have little time to concentrate on a single case before a middle school principal is found hanging from the school’s flagpole.

What is his link to the murdered prostitute or is there a link? Then there is the cold case of the murdered counselor from the Women’s Center, a case that still haunts Big Jim’s former partner. Are all three murders connected in some way? Or not?

These are questions that Big Jim and Chris must answer, and to Big Jim all three victims are equally important.

“People have to matter to you one way or another, even if it’s only out of intellectual curiosity, but they have to count for something, inside, if you ever want to be really good on the Murder Police,” Big Jim tells Chris.

Chris doesn’t believe he will ever be good as a member of the Murder Police. Even the other cops call him the ‘nerd with the badge.’

Chris is a genius at computers and organizing data, but socially inept dealing with people. “For so long Chris had thought that if he tried hard enough he would be able to fix himself, that he could learn to be normal. Now, as Big Jim tried to hide his disappointment, Chris wasn’t so sure that was something he would be able to do.”

Big Jim is certain he can “fix” Chris and turn him into a detective can do it all. Just a couple more years and he’ll be able to teach Chris how to read people.

In a stunning plot twist Chris finds himself alone without Big Jim as a mentor and guide, and paired with another partner, a hopeless drunk named Swanson, to help him make the connections between their three disparate victims.

Sharp edged dialogue, interspersed with to-the-point narrative, drives the story at the speed of a shiny new corvette with enough twists and turns and red herrings to please any mystery reader yearning for a book to keep reading into the night.