Rating: 
Summary: Romantic story
Review: The five stars are granted for reason that this is not only an excellent procedural but a romantic story. The romance snaps into place at the end. I won't disclose the details. Jane Bauer is concerned with something known as the City Hall Park case. She is taken off that case and put on a task force to solve old homicides. It seems to Jane that the initial session is all hype and cheer-leading. She wonders if other groups got more promising cases. Her team's case is set in a rent-controlled building. Four and a half years later all of the former tenants have moved. Such attrition is unusual. It is a truism that a detective never loses interest in his old cases. Jane talked to Bracken, the investigating officer, about their case, termed the Quill case. It turns out that suspicious circumstances followed other in habitants of Quill's building. Jane had grown to love her job in the police force. Retiring from it could be a problem for her. She is to move to a new expensive apartment and is slated to start a new job as an insurance investigator. She likes the havoc below 14th Street. Most of the people in Quill's building had been sad older people, but not Jerry Hutchins. One of the original investigators thought that he did not fit. She flew to Omaha to pursue the investigation. She was in search of Hutchins. The officer assisting Jane in Omaha is injured. A badly beaten Hutchins is located, eventually. Obviously someone in New York City knew that the trail of the case had shifted to Nebraska. A child Jane gave up for adoption surfaces. The real victim in the cold case used an alias. The plot is exciting and satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent New Series!
Review: We're familiar with solving old crimes from the author's ex-nun Christine Bennett series, now some 15 or so books in that set. As devoted fans, we were delighted when Harris set out to give us a new heroine, NYPD Detective Jane Bauer. Bauer is nearing her 20 years of service, with every intention of "pulling the pin" (retiring), but is given a special assignment with several other detectives to solve an old case from years earlier. When Jane discovers that in addition to the murder victim, a few other folks who lived in the same building are also dead, she launches a sequence of investigations that eventually flush out the truth, mostly from clues that were never worked the first time around. Her male sidekicks Defino and MacHovek help her with much of the legwork, but it's Jane's trip to the Midwest that really brings things into focus midway through what turns out to be a fairly complex plot. While much of the form of this book -- the cold case, the New York setting, and a female lead with both smarts and a winning way of dealing with people -- reminds us of the other Harris series, we have here more of a police procedural without having to rely on "helpers" to track clues from official sources. Jane is a likable gal, as a couple of men that warm up to her in the story find out. Meanwhile, all of Harris's skills are on display, including a plot with just enough intricacy to engage, enough characters to provide variety, and a solid writing style that pleases us from start to finish. We not only recommend this new entree, but will also no doubt anxiously await another outing with Bauer. Will she retire or not ?!
Rating:
Summary: New Lee Harris character solves cold crime from past
Review: We're familiar with solving old crimes from the author's ex-nun Christine Bennett series, now some 15 or so books in that set. As devoted fans, we were delighted when Harris set out to give us a new heroine, NYPD Detective Jane Bauer. Bauer is nearing her 20 years of service, with every intention of "pulling the pin" (retiring), but is given a special assignment with several other detectives to solve an old case from years earlier. When Jane discovers that in addition to the murder victim, a few other folks who lived in the same building are also dead, she launches a sequence of investigations that eventually flush out the truth, mostly from clues that were never worked the first time around. Her male sidekicks Defino and MacHovek help her with much of the legwork, but it's Jane's trip to the Midwest that really brings things into focus midway through what turns out to be a fairly complex plot. While much of the form of this book -- the cold case, the New York setting, and a female lead with both smarts and a winning way of dealing with people -- reminds us of the other Harris series, we have here more of a police procedural without having to rely on "helpers" to track clues from official sources. Jane is a likable gal, as a couple of men that warm up to her in the story find out. Meanwhile, all of Harris's skills are on display, including a plot with just enough intricacy to engage, enough characters to provide variety, and a solid writing style that pleases us from start to finish. We not only recommend this new entree, but will also no doubt anxiously await another outing with Bauer. Will she retire or not ?!
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