1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More character development for River City PD, December 19, 2011
This whole series is very good at showing the detailed workings of a small police department. It is not very high-paced but it fits the small town scenario and gives us a good insight into Law and Order problems outs the big cities. I read more action-packed crime stories and then slow down to the realistic pace of a small city. This story fills in many relations between characters referenced in other River City stories.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and unusual, February 24, 2008
This review is from: Heroes Often Fail (Paperback)
In most police procedurals, the protagonist (hero) may stumble, but in the end he or she prevails. Frank Zafiro's world is a more realistic one. His characters are heroic - they put themselves on the line every day on the streets of River City. But like everyone else who does a job day after day, they don't always succeed in what they try to do, either because of their own mistakes or because success simply isn't possible. Zafiro's characters must try to survive their failures in a job where the line between success and failure may also be the line between life and death.
In Heroes Often Fail, the suspense builds as the police search for an abducted child. Zafiro kept me turning the pages without resorting to obvious plot devices - suspending my disbelief was never an effort. I cared about the characters throughout. And in the end, few things turned out as I had expected.
I can't wait for the next in the series.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Heroes Often Fail" Sears into Readers, December 28, 2007
This review is from: Heroes Often Fail (Paperback)
The parental nightmares begin, as the often do, under clear skies and the promise of a new day early in the morning. It is March 15, 1995 as six year old girls Kendra and Amy walk to school like they have before and will walk home that afternoon like they have countless times before. That is until the van comes and slides to a stop next to them. They both freeze as a man leaps out of the van. He grabs Amy and Kendra runs knows the man could get her next. Instead, she gets away. The man in black didn't get her but as the hunt begins for Amy, Kendra is filled with guilt.
At the River City Police shooting range, Stefan Kopriva is filled with pain as well as guilt. Having barely survived a shootout at the Circle K six months ago, Kopriva remains on light desk duty. Despite being shot three times he survived and now wonders what more he could have done then and when his reputation will return to what it was before the robber known as Scarface rocked River City, Washington. The six months since have been painful. Not only as his body struggles to heal but in the misplaced admiration by some and the misplaced hostility from other members of the small police force who feel he, at best, failed them. Powerful pain medications and a growing romance are the only things keeping him going as he hates the mind numbing routine of desk duty. He wants his old life back and a symbol of that is getting off the restrictions and back on the streets.
He gets it but not the way he wants. As news of the possible kidnapping spreads through the department, it becomes a classic all hands on deck situation with every person pressed into service. Kopriva, as well as the other men and women of the River City police force desperately try to find Amy knowing that as the hours and days pass the idea that it is a simple kidnapping for ransom is more and more unlikely. For little Amy, kidnapping is quickly the least of Amy's worries.
Much of what happens regarding the child molestation in this well written but disturbing novel happens offstage. As such, scenes and images are created initially with a heavy emphasis on implied actions that are never described to the reader. As such, while not graphic or detailed, the implications and meanings of what is happening to Amy as well as what happens to another child in one of several secondary storylines are very clear and that material may disturb some readers.
With that being said, it should also be noted that this is a very good novel. Building on characters and events from the preceding novel "Under A Raging Moon" author Frank Zafiro has created a substantially more complex police procedural with multi layered characters, a rich setting, and plenty of action. It is clear that from a technical aspect this novel is superior in all aspects to his first novel which was very good in its own right. This novel is a step upwards and it is clear that Frank Zafiro is steadily improving his fictional game.
It is often said and assumed by many that an author's second book will be weaker than the first. While that often is true, it certainly is not the case here. What is also true is the fact that we have to wait far too long till the fall of 2008 for the third River City novel "Beneath A Weeping Sky."
Kevin R. Tipple (copyright)2007
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