Customer Reviews

Dust to Dust

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Tami Hoag is back and better than ever with her new suspense thriller, Dust to Dust. Andy Fallon, Internal Affairs cop and son of police legend, Iron Mike Fallon, is found hanging nude in his bedroom, facing a mirror with the word "sorry" printed on it. Suicide...accident...murder? Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska, two of Minneapolis' toughest detectives are told to expedite the case, call it an accident and move on. But Kovac isn't convinced and when Iron Mike is found a few days later, another apparent suicide, Kovac and Liska stop listening to the brass, put their careers on the line and start their own investigation. As they begin to dig, they uncover dirty cops, cover ups, a connection to a twenty year old case and a killer who wants to keep the secrets of the past dead and buried. This is one fast paced, page turner that will keep you up reading, all night. Dust to Dust has it all. Great characters with strong voices. Tight plot with vivid, riveting scenes and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing to the terrifying climax and very satisfying end of the book. A must read for all mystery fans!

A single word is scrawled on a mirror..."SORRY", in front of the mirror hangs the naked body of homosexual, Internal Affairs cop, Andy Fallon.

Homicide detective, Sam Kovac, and his partner Nikki Liska are called to the scene. Upon first viewing the body, it is clearly a suicide, but as the two detectives begin questioning the friends and family of Andy, it becomes clear that Andy would not have taken his own life. This leaves the detectives to wonder, who wanted him dead and why?

As the two detectives dig deeper, they see connections to a recent case Andy was working on, and a case that has been closed for twenty years, the case that left Andy's father, Mike, in a wheelchair.

Kovac and Liska will not stop until they have every piece of the puzzle in place, even at the risk of their own lives.

"Dust To Dust" is another "up all night read" from master storyteller, Tami Hoag. The pages turn fast to uncover the answers to all questions that arise as the story unfolds.

Tami Hoag is at the top of her craft; she keeps the plot moving, throwing in shocking twists, while balancing everything with believable characters.

Fans of Hoag, as well as fans of police procedurals, will enjoy this one.

A MUST read!

Nick Gonnella

Recently reading "Winter Prey" by John Sanford, I was geographically comfortable returning to Minnesota for Tami Hoag's break-neck paced new thriller, "Dust To Dust". And am curious, do these authors know something we should be aware of? Is there something up there besides the Vikings to evoke such horrifically fascinating plots?

"Intense" is an understatement for this perfect blend of crime, mystery, judicial proceedure, and serial killer genres. Solid as ice Detective Sam Kovac and partner, sassy wise-cracking Nikki Liska, from "Ashes To Ashes" are back.

This time, these two hard-edged cops put their lives and careers on the line while involved in a potential suicide of an officer from Internal Affairs, Andy Fallon. Andy was gay. Andy told his infamous father "Iron Mike Fallon" he was gay. And Andy was found hanging in front of a mirror smeared with two words--I'm Sorry.

Super sleuthing divulges secret cases from the past, Police Department hush-hush cover-ups, a retiring Captain Ace Wyatt who just might be more than Hollywood bound, another recent murder of a gay police officer, and deep delving into family issues. This suspenseful serpentine of a novel is chillingly compelling.

Ms. Hoag has reached a high plateau of delivering her readers elborately characterized, finely crafted , "dab-your-thumb-to-your-tongue" page turning blood-curdlers.

other reading suggestions: "The Devils Teardrop" by Jeffrey Deaver and "The Woman Who Rode To The Moon: A Cordelia Morgan Mystery" by Bett Reece Johnson

I appreciate your interest & comments--CDS

Let me start off by saying you won't want to miss Tami Hoag's new novel, Dust To Dust. It's simply that good of a book. Whether you like mysteries, suspense reads, crime stories or simply like good writing no matter the genre, you're in for a treat with this all-but-impossible-to-put-down whodunnit. "It is stunning how quickly it happens. How little time it takes to go from trouble to tragedy. Seconds. Mere seconds without air and the brain begins to shut down. No time to struggle. No time to panic even." So begins Dust To Dust, which features Homicide Detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska of the Minneapolis Police Department at its center. Kovac and Liska, you might recall, were colorful minor characters in Hoag's equally enthralling Ashes To Ashes. Here they take center stage in a case involving dirty cops, sexual preference and the tragic specter of past events long since thought dead and buried. Andy Fallon -- a young, handsome, athletic and gay Internal Affairs investigator -- is found dead in the bedroom of his upscale home, hanging from the end of a noose around his neck. The only witness to his death is a mirror with the word 'sorry' scrawled across it standing several feet away. By all appearances, Fallon's death is a classic suicide. The problem is, all of Detective Kovac's instincts tell him otherwise. What follows is a narrative that unfolds over the next three-hundred-fifty pages or so at a breakneck pace as Kovac and Liska do everything they can to find out why Fallon would have killed himself. Did he do so because of being rejected by is paraplegic father for being gay? Was he despondent over a love affair gone sour? Was he upset about the outcome of a sensitive case he was working on involving not only vicious gay-bashing on the part of officers within the Minneapolis Police Department, but murder as well? Or did his death have something to do with events twenty years in the past; events that left his legendary policeman father a pitiful, bitter alcoholic in a wheelchair? Just try to stop tearing through the pages of Dust To Dust as Hoag skillfully leads you through her intricate and involving plot toward the inevitable, wholly satisfying outcome. The sheer intensity of the suspense, the colorful, larger-than-life characters, the dialogue that crackles with the harshness of real-life speech, and the excellence of the story as a whole will not let you put the book down for long. I guarantee it. I highly recommend Dust to Dust as well as the other Tami Hoag novels I have read so far including: Ashes To Ashes, Guilty As Sin, and Dark Paradise. If you find yourself liking Tami Hoag's novels as much as I do, you might also like, as I do, books involving crime, mystery, suspense and intrigue by such authors as: Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Anne Perry, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Brad Meltzer, Steve Samuel and Diana Gabaldon (check out her historical mystery story Hellfire). Tami Hoag not only deserves the place she has carved out for herself among these literary heavyweights, but on your bookshelf as well. Enjoy!

You would be shocked to know that Tami Hoag used to write romance novels only, not suspense. Later, in about 1995, Tami did a transaction from romance novels to suspense novels, and boy does she write good ones. Dust to Dust is kind of a sequel/ follow up to Ashes to Ashes that came out in March 1999 and is now in paperback. I enjoyed Ashes to Ashes a lot. On August 1, I ran out to the store and bought Dust to Dust and was hooked to reading it on the first day. This book had great characters, Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska from Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust was another success by Mrs. Hoag that left you hooked to the novel page by page. Dust to Dust had a very surprising ending, which left me in shock. It seems like all the authors surprise me in the end. A gay cop, Andy Fallon, is killed after hanging himself in his own house, which is believed as suicide, but it is not and the story leads to his father, to rich and famous Ace Wyatt, cops in the Minneapolis Police Department, and even to the chief of the Internal Affairs. You could trust no one in this novel at anytime because everyone had a motive leading from prejudice against gays to a disturbing case twenty years that involved Andy Fallon's father, Mike. If you are a fan of Iris Johansen, Erica Spindler, and Wendy Corsi Staub then Tami Hoag is the one for you and Dust to Dust tops the list of her best novels.

Tami Hoag writes one of the best mystery novels in contemporary literature today. You will find yourself thinking about the book and trying to puzzle out the murder while you're doing other things...like driving, or working! Dust to Dust continued with some of the characters from Ms. Hoag's last book, Ashes to Ashes. The detectives, Sam Kovac and his partner Nikki Liska, add depth, intensity and strength to the police work involved in solving the murders in Dust to Dust. A definite must read for those who have read Tami Hoag's other mystery novels, and a definite must read for those who haven't yet discovered Ms. Hoag's talents.

What if you had to try and make sense of the hanging of a young cop? What if that cop was an Internal Affairs investigator? And what if that IA detective was gay? And what if he was the son of a legend of the department? Tami Hoag does just this and more in DUST TO DUST, a follow up to her previous book ASHES TO ASHES.

Minneapolis Police Department Sergeant Sam Kovac and his partner Nikki Liska are the detectives on the scene of the death of Andy Fallon, favored son of legend Iron Mike Fallon. His nude body hanging in his bedroom. Suicide? Murder? Accidental death? Kovac feels he owes it to Fallon's father, a legend in the department now confined to a wheelchair because of a bullet that hit his spine while on the job twenty years ago, to find out. No questions are easy, and each answer leads to another avenue to investigate.

Tami Hoag spares nothing in describing the homicide detectives and their all-too-real lives. Her portrayal of the workaholic Sam Kovac is realistic and honest. Single mother Nikki Liska juggles issues like bedtimes and an ex-husband while worrying about polaroids sent of her sons. I especially thought the dialogue was very authentic. Not one to mince words, one scene included a suspect's reaction to questioning: "By the time he was able to join Neil Fallon on the back steps, any gastrointestinal pyrotechnics had subsided."

If you enjoy a fast-paced police procedural full of twists and turns with a real surprise at the end, you'll enjoy following Sam Kovac and Nikki Liksa as they track down a killer in DUST TO DUST.

What happens when an internal affairs cop, the son of a legend, hangs himself? What happens when the two homicide cops investigating the case don't believe it's suicide despite pressure from their superiors to close the case? Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska, the hard working detectives from Ms. Hoag's previous novel Ashes to Ashes, set out trying to solve one of the most nerve racking cases of their careers. Even though all the clues point to suicide, Sam can't accept it. Andy's father, Iron Mike, was his mentor many years ago before he was left a paraplegic during a tragic shooting. Iron Mike was a tough cop who has refused to accept the fact his beloved son was coming out of the closet. Now he can't cope with the death of his child.

This novel has it all--murder, corrpution, complex character development, and gritty dialogue. What it doesn't have is Ms. Hoag's usual trademark of romantic suspense. Die-hard Hoag fans will be disappointed in this story, just as I was, that this element is missing. However, those who stick with the story (as I almost didn't) will find themselves caring about Sam and Nikki as they work together to solve the crime, yet go their own separate ways in doing so.

I really have mixed emotions about this book. On one hand I was disappointed it wasn't a romantic suspense. I was under the misconception since two of the secondary characters from her previous book now had their own story it would follow the same lines as Ashes to Ashes. I was wrong. On the other hand, once I got into the story, I have to say it is one well-written book. The suspense keeps building and building. Every time I thought I knew what was going on, something new happened that put a different spin on things.

So, this is my recommendation--if you want action and spell binding suspense that keeps you guessing, this is the book for you. However, if you're look for romantic suspense--be ready to be disappointed.

In ASHES TO ASHES, FBI agents John Quinn and Kate Conlan, and local police detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska worked together on the Terminator serial killer investigation. When the case ended the Feds went on to new careers while the locals worked on other homicides. Sam and Nikki currently work on a high profile case that their superiors want buried. The two cops are looking into the death of Andy Fallon, an Internal Affairs police officer. Someone left the note "Sorry" by the corpse, which had a rope, wrapped around the neck.

Andy was gay and was planning to come out. He was also investigating the beating death of another gay officer. The brass and most of the deceased's peers prefer to believe suicide due to sexual autoeroticism occurred with the autopsy supporting that theory. Sam and Nikki believe otherwise and willingly risk their lives to try to prove they are right.

Tami Hoag, known for her romantic suspense thrillers, changes direction in her latest novel, DUST TO DUST. Instead, the noted author turns to a police thriller style novel similar to the works of Rosenberg. The story line is filled with fast-paced action, but fans of Ms. Hoag need to understand that there is no real romance in this tale. Nikki and Sam are a dynamic team who hopefully will return in future novels while the support cast adds depth to he various sub-plots. Fan of internal police investigations will enjoy Ms. Hoag's latest book.

Harriet Klausner

I didn't think the book had very much suspense to it. It seemed like the she tried to focus your attention on other characters to avoid discovering the truth but she wasn't very good at doing so. I figured what was going on before the end of the book.