In a town in Texas called Corpus Christi, Detective Mackenzie, known as Maxie, starts investigating a murder of an investment advisor that seems totally random, because of the way he was murdered. Things start off becoming even stranger because it seems that the victim is a normal, very nice guy that didn’t have enemies at all, although being quite successful in his business with his best-friend. Maxie, the lead detective, and our main character, is the best homicide detective around and quite a successful woman full of style and confidence.
As things progress we readers find out that maybe, just maybe, this has nothing to do with the victim, but the question is: how? How do things connect? Because all we have to go with is the fact that gang members are being killed, there’s a very known investment advisor dead, the victim, his office was ransacked and there’s a shady guy watching everyone very close by. This gives us many possibilities to wander and wonder, making the book progression interesting and the following scenes eagerly expected.
Curtis, the victim, turns out to be the cousin of an old-style homicide reporter with persistence and will, and after the case is opened, both the main character and Devin, the reporter, start cooperating to solve this murder spree, that promises to quickly turn into a lethal pursuit against the criminals behind this, but this is way bigger than it looks.
The stability of William’s Gensburger narrative is something that we have to praise, because not many authors can “keep up” with their own narratives, that is, without swaying or deviating from the story. In this book, we readers can feel that the writer was focused on the story while writing. The consistent, pleasant, fast paced narrative on this book, is well used as the author keeps things light when he needs to and tells all that we need to know in order to be intrigued and focused on the happenings. Characters were introduced sharply and briefly, as if there was an info box on each character, which is very cool, and the dynamics between them is either stated, or demonstrated in the same fast and informative manner. Very nice.
The author uses the third-person narrative throughout, but the good thing about it is that it doesn’t hinder the story telling, and gives an interesting perspective of things because it makes the whole imagery cohesive. Instead of switching between many “eyes”, we see things happen at once as the narrator points details in the whole story while dynamically moving our attention to different characters that blend into the scenes and move in different directions as they sometimes “criss-cross” each other’s moments of action.
As the story progresses, the author gives off facts that are interesting to read and do make the reader think about them in a more logical way, such as systemic racism, slavery restitution acts, the blaming of past sins on present generations, the relation to the condition of the current society, disability, and mentality, things that are thrown to the reader in order to educate, to move and to inspire, something very nice from William Gensburger, which will make a difference on readers’ lives as lessons are given here objectively and briefly in a matter-of-fact way, snapping the reader out of illusions while providing great entertainment.
One thing that you will realize is that the William Gensburger does give attention to each and every character in the novel. Every character, no matter its role or importance, will have a moment of spotlight, no matter how brief and the writer will allow us, the readers to connect to them as the story progresses as they “tell” us some part of their lives, and are posed as examples in many situations in life that we might face, something that you don’t see much around.
A character here that we have to admire is Jameson, a Black Jamaican man that is put as the polite, hard-working and loving roll model for black readers, and him, being a consistent main-character did increase the relevance of the message of never blaming others for our mistakes and doing better, everyday in order to get where we want to get.
Jameson also serves as a model for real-life cops, as he is shown to be loved and accepted through his compassion and understanding towards others and not for his authority, and Jameson is acclaimed a lot in the novel, so that’s something really special as well, adding to the fact that a Black Jamaican is given off as the “superman” example instead of the regular “squared-jaw” white guy. We truly liked that.
William Gensburger takes his time in telling the mystery and showing off what is happening, and he is allowed to do that given that this one is a mystery novel and not a thriller, and when he does get into chapters where there’s action or even strong events, he makes our waiting forth the while, but don’t think that you’ll only feel the suspense in those elevated intensity moments, no, because the writer will indeed let clues and imply developments as things advance, showing us, little by little the grand scheme of things.
Although this is a mystery crime novel, I think that the author made a hell of a good job in making it more than that, as he took the opportunity to make it an inspirational book between all the investigating and all the crime fuzz and gang killing, which I made this book shine a whole lot more than expected, providing a great read to us and making us push ourselves more and more towards our goals.
This book is very nice, and we think that more writers should come up with books with this much of valuable content.
PS: William Gensburger has some VERY interesting titles, and not to mention some funky covers, so do check his author page out.
Pros:
- Excellent characters that serve as role models in most aspects of life
- Excellent lessons of overcoming hardship and mental barriers
- Great examples in romantic relationships
- Great reinforcements of value and morals, just great all the way
- Very well rooted characters
- A perfect pace for a very romantic and enjoyable mystery novel
- A steady development of the plot that doesn’t delay nor hurries
- A realistic approach to life itself
Cons:
- The main character seems believably perfect, at first
- I think that the author should have put a little more emphasis on the mystery, just a little more.
Scribble's Worth 