Customer Reviews

The Concrete Inquisition (Signet)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my favorite Joseph Flynn books. His lead character, Michael "Doc" Kildare is an ex-cop who lost his eye during a drug bust. He sues the city for a portion of the money recovered in the bust and wins $15 million. But now the drug lord is after him as is the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Dept who thinks the money should be his. At the same time, a friend of Doc's asks him to help her find her missing mentally handicapped 17 year old son. Doc soon figures out there might be a serial killer in his neigborhood. And his beautiful ex-wife is back in the picture for a romantic interest. I loved all of these characters and there are some fantastic scenes in the book. It will keep you up reading late at night.

I WAS NOT SURE THIS WOULD BE A GOOD ONE BUT ONCE I WAS INTO IT, IT GREW ON ME AND I COULD NOT WAIT TO SEE HOW IT ENDED.

I LIKED THE SHAPE OF THE BOOK. IT WAS EASIER TO HANDLE THAN A NORMAL PAPERBACK.

This book is a good read, a little predictable, but enjoyable and better than anything Patterson has put out.

The Concrete Inquisition starts as the story of a missing boy, but gradually expands to spin five mysteries (depending on how you count) into a tightly woven fabric. The good guys are a motley crew: a one-eyed ex-cop, the missing boy's mother, a neighborhood full of "characters", and the hero's ex-wife, to name a few. The bad guys are as varied as one could ask for: a serial killer, some corrupt and/or inept cops, a few thugs, and drug-connected dons. The good guys are generally likable, the bad guys suitably despicable. There's a set of unknown characters to provide ambiguity to the boundary between the good and the bad guys. By now, you might think the whole thing is trite or facetious. Well, some might consider it so. However, I found the characters, the sleuthing, and the interlocking pieces of the story to be original, interesting, and consistently gripping. I found the ending to be reasonable and satisfying, overall.

A couple of complaints/warnings might be helpful. The formatting displayed by Kindle (for PC) has systematically omitted breaks between subsections of the chapters. This causes the reader to stumble a bit at some of the scene changes. Also, as is often the case, I find myself wishing the sex scenes and the cussing were less explicit and farther between; on a scale of 1-10, probably a 5 in these areas.

I'd recommend this one to most mystery fans. If five mysteries at a time aren't enough reward for you, perhaps you'd prefer another genre?