Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The Crooked Street

Title: The Crooked Street
Author: Brian Freeman
Published: January 29th 2019 by Thomas & Mercer
Format: eBook, 362 pages
Genre: Police Procedural / Suspense
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Frost Eastman #3

You knew that there was going to be a twist at the end of this book. You were not quite sure which person was going to be the one that would blow Frost Eastman’s world apart and to be quite honest, when it happens, you are not fully prepared for it. Yet it happens, the plot was set and though Frost will be in for a showdown in the next book, you know that there will be no coming back.

Lombard is not just a street in San Francisco, it is also folklore that the police department has kept going for years. A mystery along the lines of “the bogeyman”, the one blamed when there are no other suspects or there is a need for deception.

When Frost’s old business partner shows up near death on his doorstep, Denny Clark is only able to utter one word “Lombard”, before he dies. This one utterance spirals Frost Easton, Detective with the San Francisco Police Department, into a high stakes game of finding the next victim before they becomes a victim and a red spray painted snake, in the shape of the most crooked street in the world, is found near the body.

Turns out that the infamous Lombard just might be real and has been in control for years with the police department either being inept and not relating the murders or there is an inside person purposely diverting the investigations. Either way, Frost is going to lay his life on the line to protect the last known survivor to have witnessed the Machiavellian goings on when a ship returns to shore and there is a person missing.

With subterfuge and espionage, Frost is beginning to believe that he can trust no one. Yet he has to trust and right now, that falls on the shoulders of his brother and his new girlfriend Tabby. They are the only two people, that is besides his street smart buddy Herb, in his life, but of course, Frost might have messed that up when one night his attraction to Tabby goes too far and his brother witnessed their spark.

The only thing that kept bothering me in this book was every operative had a unique code and when meeting someone would say, “identification”, which was supposed to cause them to snap to attention and spout information, like a soldier obeying orders. This was too much along the lines of “play Manchurian with me”, which was dominant in the Dean Koontz /Jane Hawk series and had me wondering if there could have been another way around that did not overlap.

No comments: