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BLUF: Slow, but steady read. Good for those (like me) who naturally suspend their disbelief.

Meet Charlie, “Bird”. Bird is a poor excuse for a husband, but didn’t deserve the loss of his wife and his daughter to a serial killer. After the death of his family, Bird left the NYPD for freelance detective work. Well, sort of. The book starts with Bird acting as a bounty hunter to pass the time, but he is soon wrapped into a case to find a missing woman as a favor to an old PD friend.

What should be a simple case soon becomes more complicated. As the bodies start piling up around the missing woman case, Bird also has to deal with the return of his wife and daughter’s killer. Obsessively, Bird seeks to trap his family’s killers. The hunt is on.

This book starts rather gruesomely, with the detailed killings of our main character’s wife and child. A lot of people are not going to be interested in reading such details, but, for the rest of us, the morbid curiosity is all we need to get sucked into this book.

The first case is slow and not very entertaining. Bird travels to a town where nobody wants to deal with him. The case isn’t very interesting and the effort the “bad guys” put into inconveniencing Bird is bizarre and excessive. The case has an enjoyable ending and I would have felt comfortable ending the book right then.

After the first case and a call from the killer himself/herself, Bird gets renewed motivation to track down his family’s killer. Along the way, Bird finds himself dragged into gang turf wars, frozen out of the FBI’s investigation, and in the arms of a new lover. This case is more enjoyable, but not necessarily “realistic”.

This book contained little things that I felt were truly unrealistic. At one point, the police act on Bird’s tip without any real question or further proof. Quick friendships with gang leads, welcoming into the FBI investigation, even if informally, and friends who would drop anything to fly to where you are and wreak havoc is a bit.. far-fetched for me.

All-in-all, I enjoyed this book and will revisited the series at some point in the future.