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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating 5-star read, July 9, 2008
Nate Rodriguez is a forensics sketch artist who works freelance. He is still dealing with the death of his father a few years ago. He and his mother don't have much to say to one another since that time. Deep down Nate feels guilty about the death.
Terri Russo is Nate's girlfriend. She works for a task force for one of the departments. As the leader of the task force, she has three men under her. Terri and Nate don't tell others they are a couple and try not to work together unless necessary.
Nate gets assigned a skull to recreate. It is a "John Doe," and they feel he may be the person to figure out whose skull it was. Terri is coming across people dead. She needs help with the case and hires Nate to help her. Nate is taken off working on the skull but now works on it in his free time. He and Terri are questioning people when another body turns up dead.
Nate's mom comes to town for a visit. He introduces Terri and they hit it off. Nate thinks this is finally his one shot to talk to his mom about his dad's death. Just when he gets the nerve he backs down. Mom leaves with the words still unspoken between the two of them.
They are not getting answers as quickly as they need them, so Nate takes to the streets to find answers. He finally finds what he's looking for. The only problem is getting the task force to see the clues for what they really mean.
With all the sketches and clues, Nate finally figures it out. Then when the skull is all done, a bell goes off in Nate's head. Now after all these years since his dad's death, there might be another break in that case as well.
I love how you see the sketches and the book tells you how to recreate a skull. The book is very interesting and keeps you turning the pages.
Armchair Interviews says: Another page-turner.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
extraordinary police procedural, June 3, 2008
NYPD forensic artist Nate Rodriguez is in demand. Bronx Lieutenant Bill Guthrie wants him to do a facial reconstruction of a skull with bullet holes that was also burned in a fire. Chief of Deportment Perry Denton wants his help on the case of a murdered student who turned hi back on the ghettand won a schiolarship at City University.
Nate interviews the dead student's girlfriend who describes a man who picked a fight with her boyfriend for no apparent reason. The sketch evidently leads the police to the killer who ends up committing suicide. That should have proven the end of the case, but soon afterward another murder-suicide occurs with echoes of the most important elements of the first incident. Guthrie tells Rodriguez to drop the case of the skull, but the artist works on it anyway because he feels compelled to finish the job. More murder-suicide crimes occurred and Nate convinces his peers they are linked, but no one knows how; besides the FBI takes charge. Nate risks his career with the help of police officer Terri Russo to solve the case, but soon realizes their lives on the line from a DARPA conspiracy to conceal the truth.
The link the cases have in common is horrific and chilling because it is believable. THE MURDER NOTEBOOK is an extraordinary police procedural as the protagonist on a quest for justice and follows the clues one step at a time with his keen artistic eye which is how they finally saw the links. It is a struggle for the police (not Nate) as clues are not linear and it takes intuition to skip the logical sequence. Jonathan Santlofer provides an enjoyable investigative tale.
Harriet Klausner
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really well done, with terrific illustrations, June 23, 2009
This is the first Jonathan Santlofer book I've ever purchased. It surely won't be the last.
I expected The Murder Notebook to be a good thriller. What I was unprepared for was the number of great sketches that came with the prose, and how being a police illustrator was so well woven into the story. When I finished the book, I reflected at how many of the books I read as a child or young man had ink or print illustrations and how that heightened the enjoyment of those books. It's a shame we don't have these today.
I also thought Santlofer did a good job of developing his characters and making us care about them. In this genre the literary sins are either breathless plotting (e.g., anything by Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown) or plots that are so overloaded they barely creak along. The author avoids both of those excesses. At the end of the book, we're ready for more, and we believe what we were given.
I really liked the sense of place in this book. He describes both police HQ's and Washington Square with equal amounts of believable detail.
I purchased this book because one of the editors at The Mysterious Bookstore commented favorabley upon it. I'm going out to buy the rest of this series now.
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