True Detectives
by Jonathan Kellerman
Reviewed by Coral
When Moses Reed transferred to West
Hollywood's Homicide department, he thought he had left Caitlin Frostig behind.
Caitlin was the first dead end case he pulled as a detective; twenty-something
college girl who just disappeared. There was no real evidence of foul play.
Moses followed all the routine lines of questioning, but considered neither her
boyfriend nor her long-widowed father to be suspects. With no leads to follow,
or evidence to process, Moses was more than happy to leave the case behind.
Unfortunately, his higher ups still consider the case to be his and they are
renewing pressure on him to close it.
Going back to it after so long, at first nothing seems to have changed; her
father and boyfriend still don't have a clue where she could have gone. But then
he seems to catch a lucky break, it seems like Caitlin's boyfriend is now
working for actor Mason Book, who happens to be friends with the sons of crazy
filmmaker Lem Dement. Both have reputations as partiers and drug users. He also
learns of the murder of Adella Villareal, currently being worked on by Petra
Connor. Is this the work of the same killer? Could this be the breakthrough that
he needs?
Making the case more difficult for Moses, is the news that his brother, private
detective Aaron Fox, is also looking into Caitlin's disappearance. It turns out
that one of Aaron's regular clients just so happens to be Caitlin's father's
boss. Because of the lack of police time and effort he sees given to his
daughter's case, Aaron has been hired for a new perspective.
Unfortunately, given the brothers less than stellar relationship with each
other, co-operation doesn't exactly come easy. Will they be able to put aside
their differences to solve both Caitlin's disappearance and Adella's murder?
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to. I've never really been a fan
of Kellerman's books that haven't been part of the Alex Delaware series, but I
think this book really worked.
I'm kind of conflicted about the flashback scenes into the brothers' past. On
the one hand, I think there should have been more, because I would have liked to
have more insight into their relationship. We were given a fairly good glimpse
of what the issues were between the two of them, but I would have liked to have
had more. On the other hand, I also find it kind of unfair that in one book I
found out more about the brothers than I have about Rick in 20+ books (okay, old
issue. I'll let go of it now).
I liked the resolution of the case, even if there was one aspect of it that I
found a little too coincidental.
It was nice to see, even in passing, Del Hardy again. Didn't really make up for
the fact that Petra was also in the book (boo!), but it was a nice aspect.
I also liked that Moses knew that Milo was gay in this book and that it wasn't an issue for him. Of course, I would have liked a scene where Milo was the one who told him, but it guess it makes sense that he would have heard it through word of mouth.
All in all, it was an enjoyable read.
Grade: B