It is a cold February night in
Dallas, Texas and the body of Father Robert Lanton has been found on Jefferson Street
near I-35. Homicide Detective Renee LaFleet and his partner Danny “Tex” Beers
have been assigned to the case because of Assistant Police Chief Harold “Harry”
Wong. Wong is not only very good at his job; he is tough on the officers below
him. Chief of Police Chief William Smyth III wants the case solved fast and
though the body has just been found in the last hour he is already pushing Wong
hard to get results.
Despite the fact that both
Wong and Smyth are despised by most, LaFleet likes them and respects them. The Chief
of Police knew the victim, Father Robert Lanton, and believes a Catholic, even
one who has fallen away from the church a bit, should work the case. LaFleet
has done some volunteer work with two of the department chaplains. Taken all
together that means he and his partner, Tex, have the case whether they want it
or not. A complicated case that will eventually lead to a final showdown in an
ice covered Cotton Bowl.
Buried in this book self-published
by the author’s own police tactical company, Charlie-Mike Enterprises is an
interesting story. At nearly every point through Sentinel’s Choice the
story is bogged down with overly long and unrealistic conversations between
characters as well as long descriptions of situations. Frequently when a one or
two sentence paragraph or comment from a character would work far better, the author
choose to give a multi sentence paragraph result in a text that is overly wordy
from start to finish. While the large paper back is only 314 pages, the read
seems considerably longer as the author shows off his extensive military and
police experience as he slowly takes readers through various things point by laborious
point.
That being said, there is a
story here worth reading beyond the noted issues with the book. The many
characters are interesting and a fair number of them are fully developed. The
action scenes work well as do the various complicated angles to the case. The
moral quandary at the heart of the novel is a difficult one with no easy
answers.
A small sample of the next
one in the series titled Sentinel's Dilemma is included at
the end of the book.
Sentinel’s
Choice
Michael
E. Witzgall
Charlie-Mike
Enterprises, Inc.
December
2013
ISBN#
978-0615938905
314
Pages
Large
Paperback (e-book also available)
$13.95
Material supplied by Publicist PJ Nunn of
BreakThrough Promotions for my use in an objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2014
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