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Fans of shows like 24 will love NIGHT LAWS, the first book in the Laws series about Detective Bryson Coventry of Denver. Right now, he has three cases keeping him busy. First is the brutal murder of D'endra Vaughn. Second is the puzzle of Kelly Parks, who received a call from the murdered woman's phone after the fact. Last and most pressing is the disappearance of Megan Bennett. The evidence points to a serial killer who takes great pleasure in tormenting his victims, finally murdering them in inventive and horrifying manners. And the evidence doesn't lie. Kelly Parks said that she had no connection to D'endra, but that wasn't the whole truth. She might not have known anything about the phone call, nor was D'endra a friend of hers. But almost a year previously the two women had witnessed the abduction of another woman. At the time Kelly believed that she was being well-paid to disappear and therefore staged her kidnapping, but Kelly is now starting to wonder if she had unwittingly helped cover up a crime. A grim, gritty book for the action, hardboiled, and horror fans, the plot moves at a breakneck speed, covering 13 days while juggling three points of view -- Coventry's, Parks', and the kidnapper's. There is never a dull scene or a slack moment; Hansen is to be commended for giving equal time to so many different story lines. Few authors manage to work that amount of detail into their books without short-changing one of the sub-plots. I'll confess that watching Megan's ordeal through her tormentor's callous eyes disturbed me badly -- but than, I also admit that that's the point. The only note that struck me as being contrived in this intricate structure was Kelly's sudden friendship with Jeannie; the two very dissimilar women were thrown together by circumstance, so I had trouble believing that they became buddies so quickly. I also wonder about the legalities of Coventry flirting with one of his suspects. Other than that, the characters were fully believable (the kidnapper unnervingly so), and Coventry is well-launched into his series. The next book, FEAR LAWS, is due later this year.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, June 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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