When Paul and his partner, Tim Cullen, are called to the scene of a double murder of two high school students on the city’s west side, Paul finds the lives and deaths of the two boys hitting closer to home than he’d expected. With his personal life in upheaval, he struggles with the perspective needed to untangle the web of secrets and lies that led to their demise.
While working his way through the complicated case, Paul starts getting his life back together. After a date with an enigmatic young man takes a dark turn, he reaches out to an old flame who brings some much-needed lightness to his life. But Paul finds that relationships, like murder investigations, are never as simple as he’d like.
Reviewer: Annery
Whenever I read a book by Keelan Ellis I find myself in a conundrum: I’m deeply satisfied by the story but somehow unable to intelligently or cogently articulate why? There are no pithy quotes or overwhelming tides of emotion; no ‘heart in the palm of your hand’ declarations of undying, forever love; no cinematic acts of derring-do or danger; no unimaginable evil, just the, sadly, pedestrian strain of evil. Instead she mines the quotidian slings and arrows that make up the lives of most functioning adults, the ups & downs, the ends & beginnings of love affairs, friendships, work, growing up, starting over, revisiting our past by way of our future, they all coalesce in a picture that has the width, breath, and feel of real life. Also, for those still reading, I’d say that this isn’t, nor do I think is meant to be, a romance, not in the genre sense, but the seeds are laid for what can be a love affair for the ages. We’ll see where it goes. Meanwhile the story lands where most of my favorite murder-mysteries do, with the mystery being tangential to the other things going on. I love that. The best mystery stories aren’t really mysteries in a ‘who done it’ sense at all, but rather use the genre as a canvass to show a range of humanity, not something easy to do without coming off preachy but Keelan Ellis succeeds in spades.
Paul Solomon is 38, tall, dark, and handsome secular Jew, who’s a Homicide Detective with the Baltimore Police Department and his life is suitably a mess. Over a year after breaking up with his partner of eight years, and after much cajoling (read ultimatums) from Andy, his ex, he’s finally moving out of the home they shared. Moving out of course means begging his work partner, Tim Cullen, to put him up on his couch until he can sort something out. Paul isn’t necessarily a procrastinator, rather he’s just surrendered to the humdrum of daily life, letting his love life wither away, not making the effort to look below the surface of other relationships, and is just a bit paralyzed at the crossroads. As luck would have it, on the day Paul is moving to Tim’s couch, they also land the case of two teenage boys found murdered in a car and yet somehow this the least compelling of the things that come Paul’s way that week.
Though he’s been partnered with Tim for almost two years, it can’t be said that Paul knows him in any real way, and it’s not Tim’s fault. But all of that is about to change. I loved how the author avoided the ‘GFY cop partners syndrome’, I loved that Tim was such a non-stereotype and kept confounding Paul, and that could pretty much sum up the overarching theme of the book, IMO, how people and things are not always what they seem, how they’re mutable, and much more than the sum of their parts.
Tim is the first of these ‘surprises’ for Paul. He’s a 43 year-old Baltimore native, a red-headed Irish, a divorced cop and he doesn’t give a flying fig about Paul’s sexuality, asks questions because he’s genuinely interested, and has no ulterior motive or buyer’s remorse when he offering his bed (with him in it) to Paul, because the sofa is too short and so is his daughter’s bed. Paul begins to get an inkling of the beautiful friendship he’s been missing out on by being blind to what’s right in front of him or letting preconceptions cloud his judgement.
Added to the list of people confounding Paul or, rather just being humans, are the murder victims themselves, who flip the social/racial roles scripted for them, as do at least two of the murder suspects. Jimmy Pratt, in particular, had me filing his name away for future reference. He was a character that went from “who is this a$#hole” to “can we get a short story about him? Please?”
The biggest surprise, hurdle, or spanner in Paul’s worldview is David Haygood, a 28 year old recent arrival to the city. A kind of baby doe with a dark past looking to be redeemed or perhaps even reborn. He’ll make you think about the nature of forgiveness, faith, what do you really stand for, when it counts, and what is love in the larger sense of the word. I won’t get into David’s story but suffice it to say that not only is it Greek-style tragic, but it’s also, depressingly topical.
The unifying thread to all these characters is Paul Solomon, who in spite of sometimes being aloof and maybe a bit obtuse, also cares deeply about people, is immensely empathetic, and has a huge heart. I for one am going directly to the next book because I know it will be time well spent. I don’t want to miss a minute.
A copy of this book was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review
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