It has been a few
months since Hide
as Fall: A Harriet Foster Thriller by Tracy Clark begins
and things are still rather tense in the squad room. Detective Foster is still
haunted by the past and doing her best to function in her minimalist life. She
works, goes home, and stares at the tree outside her house, and sleeps. That
daily ritual is interrupted by having to attend the resentencing hearing of her
son’s killer at the Cook County Courthouse.
Trying to explain
to others the depths of her loss is unfathomable. A situation that Marin Shaw
is in though in a far different way.
For one thing, her
child, Zoe, is still very much alive. But, Marin Shaw has not seen her daughter
in three years because former Chicago Alderman Marin Shaw has been in prison.
An alcoholic, a lawyer, a wife, a mother, and a progressive Democrat member of
the city council, until her personal house of cards came tumbling down. She did
the crime and she has done the time though she could have made life far easier
if she had rolled over for prosecutors and told all.
She steps out of
Logan Correctional one winter’s day, a free woman though her guilt about what
she has done is its own form of prison. Thankfully, her lawyer and friend,
Charlotte Moore, is awaiting her in order to whisk her away from the prying
eyes of the media and others outside the prison walls.
The plan, and it is
so not her plan, is for Marin to go to the condo downtown as her husband, Will,
and Zoe, wait for the latest round of media scrutiny to fade. Will does not
want Marin at the house so as to not stress Zoe. All Marin cares about is Zoe,
so she agrees to the situation for now.
At the same time,
the story about Marin Shaw is once again a media focus. She wasn’t alone in the
corruption, but she stayed quiet. With her publicized release, some of her
fellow aldermen are quite concerned as to what she will do now. There are weak
links in the corrupt group, as there always are, and threats are made between
several group members.
Then the murders
begin.
Detective Harriet
Foster and Li catch the first murder. Alderman Deanna Leonard is dead on the
sixth floor of a Chicago parking garage from what some would conclude was a self-inflicted
gunshot wound. Much the same way Foster’s old partner committed suicide, also with
no warning, sometime back. And while Leonard’s death reminds her of that, there
are differences, and Foster is not convinced it was a suicide. The Especially
after the medical examiner confirms it definitely was not.
At the time of
Shaw’s trial, it was widely speculated that Alderman Leonard was part of the
latest crowd of crooks at city hall. But, Shaw never named names. That leaves
Foster and Li wondering if Shaw took vengeance? Or was some sort of random
killing just hours after Shaw got out. Did she do it? Did she hire someone? Is
she involved?
There are many
questions to answer and a lot to do.
Fall: A Harriet Foster Thriller by Tracy Clark is a complicated novel that works very well in all areas. Multiple storylines with many moving pieces, it is best to have read Hide before reading this book. Character development for Foster and several others continues and builds upon what readers already know and does so while not interfering with the main storyline. Rich, complicated, and full of detail, this second book in the police procedural series is just like the first, a mighty good read.
My digital ARC came from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer by way of the NetGalley system with no promise of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple
©2023
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