Customer Reviews

Dark Alley (Hidden Manhattan Mysteries)

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

 

 

NYC Department of Sanitation Manhattan Central District 13 Section Chief Anna Winthrop breaks up a fight between two crew members, Ernesto Balcazer and Garry Thompson over a third crew person Kelly Moore. Soon afterward, Garry's partner Terrence King calls Anna to say his teammate vanished after going behind the New Amsterdam Mews to collect garage. The next day Anna's boyfriend police officer Santos Reyes learns of Garry's body found in the Mews. NYPD Detectives Rinaldi and Roche lead the investigation.

Anna thinks the link is to a rape incident in Iraq where Garry served two tours and a brother in arms was accused, jailed and killed in prison waiting a local trial. However, the pattern does not hold up when a second corpse of a murdered woman is found inside the Amster Mews. Dubbed by the media as the Mews Killer Anna continues her inquiries trying to find the elusive link that ties the corpses together when a cold blooded killer kills two more times and targets her too.

This is a superb Hidden Manhattan amateur sleuth (See Death Is Disposable and Evil Justice) as Anna with the cooperation of her boyfriend conducts her own investigation as she believes that NYPD will not probe deep enough to seek the patterns to the murders. Readers will find it difficult to accept that Santos escorts his civilian girlfriend to crime scenes and keeps her informed on the official investigation that he has no need to know; and likewise the two detectives allow him and Anna to stay at the crime scenes. Still this is an entreating whodunit as Evan Marshall provides tremendous red herrings and several wonderful twists as he introduces readers to fake Manhattan Mews as ideal murder locales.

Harriet Klausner

A sanitation worker named Garry is found murdered in an alleyway. His supervisor Anna decides that the police aren't doing enough and begins to investigate on her own. A few days later another body is found...then another...and another. The killer is nicknamed the "Mews Murderer" and the police seem to be chasing their own tails as Anna tries everything she can to discover who the killer is before they can strike again.

To start with, I have to say that I loved the character of Anna. She was intelligent and thought through the facts coming up with some interesting points of view...some of which lead her the right direction and which lead her away. Her cop boyfriend, however, seemed to be in the story only as a way for her to get into the crime scenes. It would have been nice to see more from him, he seemed to have a lot of potential that was never used.

The mystery itself was well laid out and presented. I managed to guess the murderer early on, but I think it was just a lucky guess. We follow Anna as she interviews persons of interest and looks for clues. There were a few spots where the dialog was a little choppy or drawn out as she was asking people the same questions one after another.

Even though I had somehow managed to guess the culprit, the reasons behind his actions do not become clear until the very end. The story wrapped up very suddenly, and I would have liked to see it take more than just a couple pages. I was a bit rushed for my taste.

Overall, the book was very enjoyable and I had a hard time putting it down. If you are a mystery fan you will enjoy the story.

3/5