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Summary
Summary
Nik Kane struggles with a killer from his past in this latest entry in the Shamus Awardanominated series. Author Mike Doogan has been hailed as aa fine addition to the list of crime writers who call Alaska homea by The Seattle Times, Twenty years ago, Alaska was a different placea rougher, more violent. Danny Shirtleff was the kind of cop needed to keep the lid on Anchorage, never afraid to mix it up. His luck ran out on a muddy road next to Skeleton Lake. Two bullets in the back of the head took care of Danny, and landed fledgling detective Nik Kane with the first big case of his career. He never expected that it would take twenty years to untangle the threads that made up the dead police officeras life. Two decades on and Nik has been badly injured in pursuit of his latest case. Something about this experience starts him thinking about Danny Shirtleffaa mystery that has haunted him for years. Physically unable to take on a new assignment, Nik is determined to keep himself occupied by reexamining the evidence in this cold case. But cold cases can heat up. And Nik is about to get burned.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. Three different stories separated by decades propel Doogan's stellar third Alaska police procedural (after 2007's Capitol Offense): PI Nik Kane's poverty-stricken, fatherless youth in Anchorage during the early 1960s; Nik's first murder case at age 36, the unsolved homicide of fellow cop Danny Shirtleff in 1985; and the aftermath of a shooting in 2007 in which Nik's son, Dylan, took a fatal hit from a stray bullet from Nik's own gun. Nik's sister, Cee Cee, a nun, helps his body and soul recuperate in the wake of Dylan's accidental death. The jarring shifts of perspective, fine-tuned to Nik's lifelong search for his father, intensify as the novel crescendos toward its devastating conclusion. All the characters spring from the page as intense as today's violent crime headlines and as convincing as a .38 slug to the belly. Doogan, a former reporter and now Alaska state legislator, doesn't miss a searing beat in this three-movement symphony of loss, guilt and revenge. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A near-fatal shooting sends a veteran cop tumbling back to two turning points in his life. After being shot on the job, Anchorage private detective Nik Kane slips in and out of consciousness. His memory of recent events comes back in painful pieces, beginning with the death of his son Dylan. An incremental recovery, aided by his half-sister, now a nun, is counterpointed by two memorable times in his life. In 1985, fledgling police officer Nik faces the first big investigation of his career; in the 1960s, teenage Nik, in the shadow of a juvenile delinquent brother, finds a first love and a first job and tries to find Teddy, the father who abandoned his family. In '85, rookie Nik trails in the wake of his partner, larger-than-life Detective Sergeant Giuseppe Donatello DiSanto, aka Jackie Dee, as they investigate the suspicious shooting of popular detective Danny Shirtleff. Jackie Dee teaches rookie Nik the ropes. Nik now wonders whether his senior partner, who always operated outside the lines, may have known more about Danny's shooting than he let on, or worse. Doogan (Capitol Offense, 2007, etc.) gets maximum impact by interweaving his three related plotlines, each of which could have sustained its own novel. Writing with as much style and authority as ever, he's crafted a plot worthy of his prose. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Anchorage journalist Doogan, whose Nik Kane series got off to a great start with Lost Angel (2006), is back with number three. Following hard on events that played out in Capitol Offense (2007), this one begins as the fiftysomething ex-cop comes slowly back to consciousness after being shot, alternately remembering and dreaming of his childhood, the beginning of the end of his marriage, and his first year as an Anchorage police detective. To still his thoughts about his part in a devastating family tragedy, he undertakes a review of two unsolved mysteries that have haunted him for 20 years: the disappearance of his father and the murder of a fellow cop, found dead at Skeleton Lake. The Alaskan landscape, so visceral in his first book, is disappointingly absent here, and the mysteries are sidelined in favor of Nik's personal history, which unfurls in initially confusing, fractured episodes that careen from past to present. Doogan's fans won't want to miss an episode, but it's a sure bet they'll be hoping for a tighter, better book next time around.--Zvirin, Stephanie Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Juggling three plot lines from different times in Nik Kane's life and moving from the 1960s to the 1980s to the present, Doogan fleshes out Kane's family history, his working the still-unsolved murder of a fellow officer, and the aftermath of the shocking events of Capital Offense. Doogan does not disappoint. He shows that there is new terrain to be staked in this genre and that some authors can provide a slam-dunk ending in an understated, unique fashion only achieved by such masters as Bill Pronzini and Jeremiah Healey. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 4/1/08.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
