Customer Reviews

Close Case (Samantha Kincaid Mysteries)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thirty-two year old Samantha Kincaid, the protagonist of Alafair Burke's new thriller, "Close Case," is the Deputy District Attorney for Multnomah County in Portland, Oregon, as well as the newest member of the Major Crimes Unit. Although Sam loves her job and is very good at putting bad guys behind bars, she is often conflicted about how to behave in morally ambiguous situations. "Close Case" throws Sam into plenty of hot water, and she soon gets scalded.

When black investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw is beaten to death outside his condo, Sam is asked to oversee the case. Crenshaw had been driving an S-Class Mercedes Benz just before he was murdered. Was he the victim of a carjacking gone wrong or did the killer have a personal vendetta against him? Another high profile incident involves Delores Tompkins, an unarmed African American woman who was fatally shot through the windshield of her car by a Portland patrol officer. Both cases are politically sensitive. Sam's boss, District Attorney Duncan Griffith, is wary of the fallout from the media and civil rights groups. To make matters worse for Sam, her live-in boyfriend, Detective Chuck Forbes, doesn't always agree with the way that Sam does her job.

Alafair Burke's experience as a former deputy district attorney lends authenticity to this gritty and complicated police procedural. She details the tough lives that district attorneys and cops lead, with the never-ending demands on their time, patience, and energy. Sam is an engaging character, and her desire to follow her instincts and always do the right thing brings her into inevitable conflict with her supervisor and her boyfriend.

The varied characters in the book include a courageous grass-roots activist, Selma Gooding, who knows more than she realizes about Crenshaw's death, Heidi Hatmaker, a rookie reporter who worked with Percy and would like to find his killer, and Lisa Lopez, an irritating defense attorney who gives Samantha heartburn. There are plenty of suspects and red herrings to keep the reader guessing as to whodunit and why. Burke's easygoing and often droll writing style and her deft characterizations add to the book's appeal. My one quibble is the ending, which has far too many coincidences to be believed. Still, "Close Case" is a suspenseful and engrossing thriller, and Burke gives her readers valuable insight into the workings of the criminal justice system. She also demonstrates the difficulty that people of good conscience have when they seek justice in a corrupt world.

Alafair Burke has shrugged off comparisons to her famous mystery-writer father and shown she has a style all her own. The Samantha Kincaid series is full of legal complexity, tightly spun plots, and an engaging female lead.

Samantha is a living, breathing character. It's hard not to like this lady. Sam's a tough cookie, but she has a heart underneath her protective exterior. She also knows the ins and outs of the justice system. Once again, she is thrust into a murder mystery set in Portland, Oregon. This time, an investigative reporter has paid the ultimate price in his search for the truth. Samantha will risk her career, her friendships, and even love in an effort to get to the bottom of this violent act.

Burke's strengths can sometimes be a weakness. She is so adept at conveying the inner workings of prosecutor and police procedures that she occasionally loses my emotional connection to the story. Fortunately, this happens only once or twice, and Burke grabs me again with her ability to wind readers deeper and deeper into a mystery. Only as the last pages turn do we discover all the layers involved.

With "Close Case," Alafair Burke proves that she is a writer standing on her own merits, a writer who will be around for years to come. And I, for one, am thankful.

Realistic characters living and working in a fascinating mileu, skillful plotting, and an astute prose style make this book a standout.

Deputy DA Samantha Kincaid is a member of the prestigious Major Crimes Unit in Portland, Oregon. Her reputation as a savvy attorney and investigator has been earned in the trenches. Whether law enforcement peers like her or not, they respect her intelligence and instincts. She has a brisk no- nonsense personal style and the uncanny knack of winning when the chips are down. Two unrelated cases put her life and reputation in jeopardy.

The shooting of an unarmed black female civilian by a white cop has Portland's nerves on edge. Angry civilians are convinced the shooting was racially motivated. Then Portland's celebrity muckraker, Percy Crenshaw -- also black -- is bludgeoned to death just outside his apartment. Civilians are outraged by his murder; Kincaid and fellow investigators are mystified,
until one suspect confesses to the crime. But will the questionable confession stand up to scrutiny?

Disconnected leads take Samantha from one dead end to another as she investigates both crimes. As she untangles each small clue in Percy Crenshaw's notebooks, it soon becomes apparent that the killings were connected. Even members of the Portland Police Department are suspect, including her boyfriend Det. Chuck Forbes and his loose cannon partner Mike. Regardless of the outcome to her career and love life, Samantha digs for truths that might end up killing her.

Close Case is an exciting suspense thriller, rich with the legal and law enforcement details intelligent readers of the genre crave. Critical praise received for the Samantha Kincaid Series is well-deserved.

This book follows Samantha Kincaid, a Portland assistant DA, in her efforts in pursuing two apparently unrelated murders, which require her to balance both community demands and the rights of suspects and victims. She also must take into account her need to have a good relationship with the policemen on her case, yet not turn a blind eye to pressures to manufacture suspects and force confessions.

The brutal murder of Percy Crenshaw, a prominent black journalist, and the questionable shooting of Dolores Tompkins, an African-American, by a Portland police officer on a traffic stop bring a lot of heat on both the police department and the DA's office. A complicating factor is Sam's live-in boyfriend, Chuck Forbes, a detective with the Portland police dept. Her standing with the police dept, and even her boyfriend, become very strained when she not only has to acknowledge and contend with a coerced confession obtained by Chuck's partner, but also because it is her job to take the shooting case involving the policeman to the grand jury.

The plot is reasonably complex, is largely coherent, and moves well. DA and police process are emphasized: especially the difficulties, contentiousness, and political pressures. An interesting plot development is the unintended clues left behind by Percy that have been noticed and pursued by fledgling reporter Heidi Hatmaker.

Most of the characters in the book are hastily drawn. At the least, one could have expected better development of Samantha, especially in her relationship with Det. Forbes. Furthermore, the ending of the book is both rather abrupt and somewhat ad hoc, not particularly consistent with the overall pace and tone of the story. All in all, not a bad read.

This is a book by the daughter of the well-known writer, James Lee Burke. A thumbnail biography at the end of the book states that Alafair Burke graduated from Stanford Law School, is a "former district attorney in Portland, Oregon," and that she "now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School."

James Lee Burke's books are widely popular and of the sort that I would read after extracting every last crumb from a crumbling set of Readers' Digest and maybe a 1948-51 run of National Geographic--but only if I were REALLY hurting for a literary fix. Alafair Burke is, thank heaven, a quite different writer. She skillfully avoids her father's orotundity on the one hand and his swamp snobbery on the other. She tells a straightforward tale in an admirably lean and efficient manner, comes to an end, and then stops.

I have, of course, no way in which to confirm the impression, but I find her descriptions of the activities and people of the Multnomah County DA's office and the Portland Police Department to be convincing to a degree not often found in mystery novels.

Burke's heroine, Deputy DA Samantha Kincaid, is refreshingly more astringent than she is likeable. She's given to occasional bouts of self-doubt and second guessing--none of which she would ever admit to anyone else. The exigencies of commercial plotting insure that Ms. Kincaid life and career may be a bit more ... intense than that of DAs in general, but I look forward both to catching up with her earlier adventures and following her new ones.

Four solid stars.

I have read Judgment Calls and Missing Justice recently, and I've enjoyed the series so far. Since Alafair Burke is the daughter of one of my favorite authors, I expected her to be a strong writer. The interesting thing is that she is so unique, very different from her father, and at the same time such a good writer.

For one thing, her main character is a prosecutor in Portland Oregon. Her dad writes about Louisiana and New Orleans, so the contrast is pretty strong. One similarity, though, is that she, like her father, does a wonderful job of evoking the place. I haven't been to Portland since I was a kid, and I remember nothing of it, but I feel like I've visited.

A second thing is the writing style itself. James Lee Burke is one of the best descriptive prose writers alive, as far as I'm concerned. His daughter doesn't have his high-flying skills (not yet anyway) but her plots, if anything, are stronger than her dad's, and her writing is serviceable enough to get her by, and then some.

Lastly, there's her characters. The main character/narrator, Samantha Kincaid, is an interesting person, at times cranky, opinionated, and short-tempered, but always intelligent and quick.

In the current installment, Kincaid starts out handling the killing of a local black newspaper reporter who was known for his investigative pieces. Someone has beaten him to death, and initially it looks like a botched carjacking. The city is already simmering because just a couple of weeks previously a black woman, unarmed, was shot repeatedly by a patrol officer. When the older, more experienced prosecutor handling that case goes down with a case of Lyme disease, Kincaid's handed the officer-involved shooting also, having to decide whether to prosecute the cop, and then try to make her decision work.

As things unravel, it becomes apparent that no one involved in either of the cases is telling the truth. Things are complicated further by the fact that Kincaid is sleeping with a detective who winds up being the primary arresting officer on the reporter's killing, and when things begin to go south there she has to take sides, and he opposes her actions. The whole thing gets very messy before the book is over.

I like Samantha Kincaid. I like the stories Alafair Burke has written. I liked this book. She's not going to fall into obscurity (the connection to her father means that she gets a lot of publicity--look at the blurbs she's gotten) but so far she hasn't had a real hit. Don't worry, it's coming.

I picked this book up in a hospital gift shop when I was desperate to have something to read, and the selections there were very limited. It's not the type of book I normally read. Luckily, I found the book to be enjoyable. I liked the protagonist, who was drawn with characteristics mimicking a real person. She was interesting, cranky, loving, suspicious, etc. The mystery was well drawn. What keeps this book from receiving a four star rating is that many of these characters were introduced in other books, and I felt I was missing important back stories that were repeatedly alluded to by the author. You might want to start with Judgment Calls and Missing Justice, the previous books by Alafair Burke.

Samantha Kincaid has her hands full in CLOSE CASE by Alafair Burke. This is the third book featuring the Oregon Deputy District Attorney, who is enmeshed in a love affair with a detective; is called upon to investigate the shooting death by a white cop of an African-American woman, Delores Tompkins; and is the "go to" person who has to deal with the fallout of a neighborhood protest, held so that the authorities know the community will not accept a whitewash, where no justice is found for the victim, Tompkins. The rally ends in chaos. Then, to stir the pot even more, a beloved African-American investigative reporter and activist, Percy Crenshaw, is murdered outside his home after the vigil.

The public outcry is heard by the powers that be, which sends the politicos scrambling to barricade themselves behind their staffs, who are expected to apply due diligence and solve the crimes. Samantha opines: "The news now ha[s] one more story to add to the pile of coverage about Delores Tompkins and the protest." Her boss tells her she is being assigned these cases because "It's not just their race ... haven't you picked up a paper in the last week? Officer Hamilton struck three bullets into that woman's head."

Of course Samantha takes on both cases and in her inimitable way manages to maintain her integrity even while she inevitably shoves the noses of her superiors out of joint. Burke says of her feisty character, "A defining characteristic for Sam is her near-pathological obsession to pursue what she considers to be justice. She's so consumed by doing what's 'right' --- as she defines it --- she often screws up her [personal and work-related relationships, and] she doesn't want to sell out to office politics at the expense of her own moral vision."

At first the cases seem unrelated. But the more Kincaid investigates, the more convinced she becomes that the killings are not isolated incidents. At the same time, she is forced to face the crosscurrents and divided loyalties among her colleagues: the cops begin to see her as a pariah, which becomes an insidious wedge between her and the detective she loves. But this DA will not be deterred in her quest to solve the crimes. According to the author, one of the devices that saves her is that
"...Samantha's job takes her both into the courtroom in traditional ways [and] also out into the field with police during the investigation. The breadth of her official responsibilities gives me a great deal of flexibility in the storytelling. Some plot points are developed in court, but many are not."

Alafair Burke was a DA in Portland, Oregon, and in an interview she explains why Samantha is also a DA: "I borrow details from my own courthouse experiences and about Portland itself. [Samantha spends little time in the courtroom because if I place her there, I am caught in] "... the limiting nature of courtroom discourse [which I believe] is not very dramatic. Also, realistically, prosecutors spend little...time in actual trials. Instead, they occupy this world in between the police precinct and the courtroom, where the real action takes place in the criminal justice system. It's there where the important decisions get made about whom the investigation will target and how the investigation will proceed. I find that world a much more fascinating place than the courtroom itself."

For all of these reasons, and more, CLOSE CASE is an enjoyable read. The well limned characters, interesting plot, believability of the crime, and the way Burke brings readers right into the investigation add to the tension and suspense. In an online interview Burke said that she is at work on her fourth Samantha Kincaid novel and if she decides to "try something without her...I'll always keep coming back to her character as long as she continues to be interesting and grow through the series. The real challenge for me in writing a series will be to keep Samantha interesting and fresh, but still familiar."

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

Multnomah County, Oregon Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid has her thirty-second birthday disrupted when she is assigned to work a highly visible homicide, the murder of investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw. Samantha goes to the Portland crime scene where she learns the victim was bludgeoned to death in his driveway. Not long afterward the police get a confession from a young man Todd Corbett who also points the finger at his pal Trevor Hanks.

However, Todd recants the confession insisting the police used questionable tactics. Since the city is already in an outrage protesting law enforcement excesses especially the shooting death of African American Delores Tompkins by a white police officer, Samantha's simple case falls apart. Still Samantha, knowing she is under "trial" after her previous media case, begins tracing Crenshaw's paths to find who had motive. She never expected that her inquiries to take her into a cooperative police- drug trafficking. Her cop pals including her boyfriend object to Samantha's involvement, which could also lead to her murder if she is not careful.

The latest Kincaid legal thriller is a dynamic tale that sub-genre fans will want to read as soon as possible. The story line provides fascinating legal battles like the dispute over Crenshaw's work files that are totally interwoven into the plot. Samantha is a dedicated courageous Deputy District Attorney, who tries her best to bring a killer to justice though her compatriots will question her methods, but readers will not. Instead they will take pleasure in CLOSE CASE, a fine thriller.

Harriet Klausner

This book was very difficult to put down.
The plot moved along at a brisk pace and the sassy Sam Kincaid was as witty as ever.
I definitely didn't see the surprise ending coming.