Book Reviews: Double Bluff by Michael

Reviews

Every writer knows that reading is as important as anything he or she might do. I’ve always enjoyed writing in different genres; to me, the key is good characters. If you have good characters, it doesn’t matter what setting or genre you put them in (but we’ll save that for another time). I also read in many different genres. So I will post my unwanted opinions on the books I read for you. I don’t want these to be your typical Amazon reviews, though. I might like one certain thing about the book, and I’ll write about it. If I hate certain aspects of the book, you better believe I’ll tell you. And while my first novel is a detective novel, these books will cover a whole span of genres.

A Different Type of Detective Novel

So let’s begin.

If you’ve read my book, you know that Detective Blake Justice would rather be chasing down a bad guy in his souped up Challenger than doing paper work. I’ve never been in law enforcement or worked in forensics, so I’m never going to be able to create a more realistic, true-to-real life detective mystery than those authors who have actually seen a dead body up close and had to go through the proper procedures to make sure evidence was permissible.

And let’s be honest, most of that nitty gritty stuff is boring as heck. It’s the same reason you don’t write about a character putting in contacts when they get up in the morning (unless it’s pertinent to that character or story). I mean, let’s not Charles Dickens the story more than we have to.

However, Double Bluff would rather use the realistic pepper spray and Miranda Rights than Justice's Desert Eagle. For heaven’s sake, Detective Justice investigates anything he wants to (special divisions are for wusses).

Michael A Hawley has worked in law enforcement for years, so you know he knows his stuff. And it shows in the book. This is not normally a book I would be interested in, but it was 50 cents, and I wanted to broaden my horizons some.

What’s it About?

The book follows two main protagonists, a detective named Leah Harris and an Internal Affairs investigator named Frank Milkovich. Leah Harris is called to a murder scene in the middle of the night—a grisly stabbing of a young woman.

When it seems a fellow cop could be implicated in the crime, Frank Milkovich also responds, only to find that this is much more than a simple homicide.

The two protagonists find money and drugs in the apartment, and soon they’re investigating a wealthy Columbian banker who self-admittedly has ties to a drug family but has instead gone the respectable citizen route.

Separate plots tie into one another, and the reader gains insight into the dealings of Internal Affairs and the methods and procedures of detectives. It’s all there—how to handle evidence properly, interactions with lawyers, the solidarity of those behind the badge, the feeling of exhaustion having been on a massive case for 24 hours straight.

Good Book, Bad Romance!

The story is solid, the writing is solid, the characters are solid. It’s a decent book (not my style necessarily—too detailed, soap opera sex drama).

However, I have one big complaint. Hawley writes two strong and complicated characters who fall in love in 12 hours because…well, because Hawley wants them too.

I’m not kidding—12 hours.

Harris is literally getting out of bed with a guy she’s seeing to leave for the crime scene. 24 hours later, after finding out that the guy she was seeing wasn’t a great guy, she’s falling for Frank Milkovich who happens to be investigating the same case. You wonder if she would fall for convenience store clerks if her car broke down in their parking lot for more than an hour.

It makes absolutely no sense, and for an author who seems to be writing for realism, this love angle makes about as much sense as the cops busting down a drug house’s door armed with laser guns and battle axes. The two characters have had no interactions before; they’re not seeing something new in each other after having been platonic partners in the past. They literally meet each other in a murder investigation, we’re shown how professional they are, and a few hours in, they’re stealing glances at one another and wondering what it would be like to hold the other one. Milkovich makes a little more sense. He’s the ostracized loner in the department, divorced, and recovering from addictions. Harris is an attractive female who is independent and knows what she’s doing, so it would make sense for him to take interest in her. However, Harris just comes off looking like a desperate middle school girl, crazy about every guy.

Besides the love story, the why-in-the-world-would-they-fall-in-love-during-all-of-this love story, this is a very readable and decently entertaining novel.

Verdict

Double Bluff gets a 6 out of 10 in the Mark of Approval. (I would say don’t copy that expression, but I don’t think I have to worry about anyone doing that.)