Monday, May 7, 2018

Alter Ego

Title: Alter Ego
Author: Brian Freeman
Published: May 1, 2018
Format: eBook, Hardcover, 400 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Jonathan Stride #9

There is a slow building intensity to Jonathan Stride novels. You know the characters, you know the scenery, but there is always something lurking in the background that holds you to the spot and makes you continue on to each chapter; each nuance that brings you to the final conclusion that makes you exhale the “huh” that you had been holding in for the last third of the book.

After eight books, Brian Freeman has combined Stride’s past and presents a ninth book that explores a previous case with a new eye, a new realization, and brings his lead character from the Cab Bolton series to Duluth for an ultimate showdown with Hollywood royalty.

With a movie company in town to film scenes from Stride’s past, a body is discovered that ties to the film crew and when an investigator, sent by Cab Bolton also goes missing, the two team up to take down the elite in the most dramatic way possible and in doing so, a fragile mind is bent further.

I was never a fan of the Bolton series, it just never caught on for me, but using him as a secondary, or was it a primary character; Freeman brought new life to both Cab and possibly Maggie through Stride. Swinging storylines in concentric arcs, the reader is ultimately brought to the center with the realization of the true puppet master and how one small detail can be the unraveling of a damaged mind.

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