Flight

Jan Burke

Lt. Paul LeFebvre works for the Las Piernas Police Department as a homicide detective. He is one of the first officers on the scene of a brutal murder. A police commissioner and his daughter have been killed while cleaning his boat. His son Seth is closed up in the head, badly injured. LeFebvre spends the next week or so splitting his time between Seth's hospital bedside and investigating the killings.

The purported head of the local mob appears to have committed the murders. Yet LeFebvre senses something not quite right. Then Seth is murdered in the hospital. LeFebvre finds himself framed. When he flies off to protect himself, his plane stalls in the air and goes down.

Ten years later LeFebvre's plane and body are found. His name is an anathama at the Las Piernas Police Department. He was blamed for taking a bribe of dirty money and killing Seth. Frank Harriman has been given the case of LeFebvre's death. Harriman was not with the Las Piernas department ten years earlier so might be somewhat objective. As Harriman starts digging, he begins to suspect something askew with the police commissioner's, Seth's and LeFebvre's deaths. Soon he believes that LeFebvre was framed. The person doing the framing probably works in the law enforcement department.

Soon Harriman and his wife, Irene Kelly, are the target of a mysterious character, The Looking Glass Man. The reader has known about this person from the beginning. But we do not know who it is. We are able to follow as he schemes against the couple and anyone else investigating the old cases.

This book keeps the reader right on the edge. This is an investigative mystery that pulled me right in. At times I had to put it down because I was too involved. Other times I couldn't put it down for the same reason. I have not read any of Burke's work before, and was quite impressed with this novel. I read another review after I finished the book that mentioned the ending was a bit over the top. I have to agree that some overkill happened at the climax. Still, this is a novel any mystery reader will enjoy.

Nine by Jan Burke