Thursday, December 7, 2017

Marathon

Title: Marathon
Author: Brian Freeman
Published: May 3rd 2017 by Quercus
Format: Hardcover, 408 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Jonathan Stride #8

Taking a nod from the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, Brian Freeman expands his story by pointing out how rumors and hatred can turn a town like Duluth, Minnesota, upside down and drag the innocent into a web of deceit and lies.

Near the finish line of the Duluth marathon, a bomb explodes and with it, countless lives have been changed. Dawn Basch is in town stirring up trouble with her First Amendment speeches and finds the Muslim community an ideal target to blame for this attack. With no real justification, and social media stoking the fires, cab drive Khan Rashid is targeted as a person of interest and FBI special agent Gayle Durkin is called in to find their suspect.

All of this turns into a major cluster as Jonathan Stride, Serena Dial-Stride, and Maggie Bei race around Duluth in hopes of finding the truth before more innocent people are killed. Dawn Basch does not care who is caught in her crossfire. She has an agenda and she knows who is responsible, yet Freeman would not make it that easy for his readers. There are twists. There is even a time or two that the reader is lead down a wrong path, or maybe it was just me trying to tie up loose ends, but in its conclusion, there is still a gasp or two.

This is a fast read. The characters are real, their pain is apparent on each page, and Brian Freeman does not pull any punches. There are times where you hope that the hero of the day will ride in and save the innocent, but the fact that he does not, leads more credence to the pain that both the town and its people have to endure.

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