I've come to appreciate police procedurals enormously in
recent months, first through the Sjowall-Wahloo books on
Martin Beck (sort of semi-procedurals, at least in my mind)
and then through Ed McBain. I guess I'd better check out
Craig, since the genre (or sub-genre) is really
enjoyable.
So it pleases me to point out a procedural that I like
enormously. I've talked and asked occasionally about Richard
Abshire, author of the Jack Kyle P.I. series, and co-author
(with William Clair) of the Gants series (also a P.I., but
with some supernatural overtones). And recently I inquired
about TARGET BLUE, a book written by Abshire and Clair under
the pseudonym Terry Marlow. Well, I'm about 20 pages from the
end of TARGET BLUE, and unless everything gets shot to hell
in those 20 pages in some literary catastrophe the likes of
which I can't imagine, this will end up being, very likely,
the best procedural I've ever read. Abshire and Clair
are/were both cops, which informed their other books rather
well, but which makes TARGET BLUE incredibly realistic. I
like it far more than the others, though I like those books a
lot. One aspect I like that I've not seen in other
procedurals is the multi-viewpoint, multi-division framework.
Rather than tell the tale from the viewpoint of the various
homicide detectives working the case, "Marlow" tells this
story from the perspective of police officers in several
different divisions of the Dallas police department
(divisions which pursue their own individual goals, sometimes
to the detriment of another division's goal). One passage
will be from the viewpoint of a detective working auto theft,
another from that of a narcotics officer, another from that
of a vice cop, and then there are also passages from the
viewpoints of several criminals. Much of the story seems at
first unrelated, one part to another, but it is weaving into
a VERY complex but exciting tapestry of crime and
investigation. I highly recommend this book to anyone who
likes to read about how cops work. At least up until the last
20 pages. I'll let you know if it holds up or folds up.
(Hell, I could've read those 20 pages in the time I took to
write this!)
Jim Beaver
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