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To clear the junk out of the way, I reviewed the first novel in this three novel series and my complaints then are my complaints now. To wit: the author is still tossing in meaningless bits of information to confuse the reader and does not edit with care so the novel is filled with errors, although they are small enough simply to annoy but not ruin the flow. And then, as was true with the first book, the cover art suggests that the artist has not actually read the book.
Whew!
Leaving that behind us where it belongs, O'Connor is again to be applauded for hitting upon the clever and difficult to manage device of having a dead protagonist, two years dead now, and stuck between earth and eternity. Homicide Detective Oliver "Tuck" Tucker isn't one to float on his laurels, so to speak, and having practiced getting to and fro and found ways to rev up his juices, he goes right on investigating murders for his former police department. Luckily, his former partner Bear Braddock is not only aware of his intermittent presence but can hear him speak, as can Tuck's widow, Angela, but no one else can.
With the advantage of being unseen and unheard by those on the scene and the useful ability to pass through walls, etc., Tuck can observe a crime site early and fully and can then advise Bear, who by this third novel is receptive to all the help Tuck can give him. Another detective named Cal is very suspicious of Bear's constant talking to his dead partner and may know that Tuck is actually around, but that may not be conclusive.
Widow Angela is now thirty-seven and feeling just as trapped as Tuck does. She loves Tuck but he's dead, she wishes she could have him back alive but she can't, she longs for an intimate relationship but isn't sure she's ready for one – and with Tuck, super jealous Tuck, constantly around she has no way to have one anyway.
In DYING TO TELL we are immediately faced with a bank robbery gone wrong, a definitely murdered bank president who is found in a vault in a secret annex to the bank (which pretty much everyone knows about), a missing cache of invaluable ancient Egyptian artifacts that the bank president had hidden away, cronies of his from his service in Egypt in WWII, a brash but mysterious bank security officer who lusts after Angela, a very guilty looking bank president's son who is way over his head in gambling debts, a former mobster who now appears to be bankrolling all kinds of local endeavors, and an Egyptian woman trying to recover the artifacts which were her father's and to take revenge on the one who murdered him during WWII in order to steal them.
Tuck's deadness hinders him constantly. He has few physical powers to intervene when things are going wrong and those who can't see or hear him can't be warned. Even those who can, like Angela, can simply ignore him and rush headlong where he would not have them go.
There are so many threads to follow and the unusual presence of the protagonist so demanding that the mystery is necessarily very confusing. Tossing in Tuck's dead father and dead grandfather to muddy things up may help explain (in tiny shreds only) the long history of violence done to the Tucker family but at times it becomes so cryptic that it does violence to the reader as well.
Again: kudos for this fabulous device. I sure want it tightened up, but I am all for it.
§ Diana Borse is retired from teaching English at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and savoring the chance to read as much as she always wanted to.
Reviewed by Diana Borse, February 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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