City of Echoes

Rookie LAPD homicide detective Matt Jones, the hero of Ellis’s overheated crime novel, accepts that Kevin Hughes, his best friend and mentor, was killed in a robbery, until another detective’s suspicious death points to a rogue police frame-up of an innocent man for what actually was the first in a series of ghastly ritual murders. Matt’s eager-to-get-along partner, Denny Cabrera, can’t be trusted, and his boss, Lt. Bob Grace, led the earlier, corrupt investigation. While pursuing an insane killer and evading his traitorous peers, Matt is distracted by a growing attraction to Kevin’s widow—and by his obsession with the father who deserted him in childhood. If this were a Michael Connelly novel, Harry Bosch would pull himself together and soldier neurotically onward; in this one, Matt barely keeps himself from unraveling until the story breaks off. The plot offers many opportunities for pulpish melodrama, and Ellis (Murder Season) dives into most of them. [em]Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Aug.) [/em]