Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – THE DARKEST GAME BY JOSEPH SCHNEIDER
Showing posts with label Joseph Schneider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joseph Schneider. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Thursday, March 09, 2023
Review: The Darkest Game: A Novel by Joseph Schneider
The Darkest Game: A Novel by Joseph
Schneider is the third book in this police procedural series that features LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel. A former
academic who left his PhD program as he was working on his dissertation in
order to join the LAPD, he is an enigma to his police coworkers as well as his
parents who fled Iran long ago. This read builds on the previous books so it is
best to have read them before embarking on this read.
Things have been relatively calm by Los
Angeles standards, so Detective Jarsdel has been working cold cases. There are
plenty of them for the Hollywood Homicide Table, aka HH2, and Jarsdel likes the
emotional distance of old unsolved cases. It allows him to focus on the details
of each case. Focusing on the work also allows him to ignore how some at the
Hollywood station still treat him after all this time.
The cold cases and other matters are
going to have to wait as they have a fresh murder up in Laurel Canyon. The body
has been dead in the house for three days or so. The air conditioning has been
on so that helps a little bit. The fact that most of his face is gone, thanks
to being shot, does not help with the identification process. Not only is part
of the face mostly gone, so too are the bullet casings.
The initial officers responding to the
scene thought it was a home invasion gone wrong. That does not work for
Morales, Jarsdel’s partner, as he can’t figure out why a home invasion robber
would go to the trouble of picking up the casings out of the shag carpeting.
While his wallet seems to be gone, it is kind of weird that the cushions have
been yanked free and tossed randomly around on the floor. There was a lot of
anomalies at the crime scene and the detectives are not sure exactly what they
are looking at.
After figuring out who he was, they learn that he worked at a place named the
Harrington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. They head there in the
June heat and learn that Mr. Dean Burken was officially the “Donor Engagement
Director.” A difficult man to get along with, he was in charge of securing
large donations-financial or physical objects.
It becomes clear that the victim, in
addition to be a difficult person to work with, also used his position as a
weapon against others who did not bow to his wishes. This was especially true
with the female staff and researchers. He was skilled at working things so that
his actions appeared innocent, but the reality of what he was doing goes far
deeper.
That means the suspect pool is quite
large. It also means that somebody had good reason to kill him in this very
complicated book.
Like the other books in this series, the
read is part police procedural and part history and culture book. Those segments,
whether it be art, Iranian history, or something else, are skillfully worked
into the police procedural as Jarsdel and Morales work the case.
This is a good series and the latest, The
Darkest Game: A Novel Joseph Schneider is a very good one. Strongly recommended.
The previous books in the series are One
Day You’ll Burn and What
Waits For You.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
Tuesday, March 09, 2021
Review: What Waits For You: A Tully Jarsdel LAPD Novel by Joseph Schneider
What Waits For You: A Tully Jarsdel LAPD
Novel by Joseph Schneider is the second read in the
series that began with One
Day You’ll Burn. While an interesting read, for
this reader, it was not the same level as the first book.
A serial killer is at work in Los Angeles and
getting massive media attention. Dubbed “The Eastside Creeper” by the media, it
is believed the killer lives undetected in the home of his intended victims for
days before he attacks. He studies their habits before he unleashes a brutal
attack on everyone in the house regardless of their age. Each kill is itself
its own gruesome story as each body is brutalized and mutilated in some
horrific way.
Tully Jarsdel still works in HH2, The New Hollywood
Homicide, at Hollywood Station. He still is not fitting in with his fellow
officers and detectives. Not only is he still resented for the way he was fast
tracked into the job, the former academic is far more comfortable with books
than people. A major source of annoyance is his pretentious boss.
Lieutenant Gavin’s idea of bringing in Dr. Varma,
who has some radical ideas to address the rising murder rate and other crime
stats, does not sit well at first with Jarsdel. Her ideas could work, if the
department as well as the people they serve and protect, accept them as
necessary and worthy. Beyond her ideas for engineering the environment, she is
a person of intellect and somebody who can make Jarsdel think while also personally
and directly breaking him out of his academic shell.
The personal and professional situation with Dr.
Varma runs a parallel track with the chase for “The Eastside Creeper.” As the
kills mount and politics in the station work against him, he is assigned to
“The Creeper Task Force” downtown at Homicide Special. Not only is it a way to
get him out of the Hollywood Station, it very well could be the first step in
disbanding HH2 like Lieutenant Gavin has long wanted to do. Jarsdel is also
aware that task forces are often made up of not the best and the brightest, but
a way to get rid of officers others perceive to be a problem.
What Waits For You: A Tully Jarsdel LAPD Novel by Joseph Schneider is an interesting and often slow moving read. Academic theory makes up a large part of this read where multiple discussions of various people and events as well as psychological concepts and environment engineering regarding crime policy, while interesting, slow down the action and the hunt for a killer. In addition to being a slow moving read, it seems to be a read that is, at times, designed to gross out the reader in unnecessary ways.
While I very much enjoyed the first book, One
Day You'll Burn, this read was a struggle to finish. How much of that
was due to an actual sophomore slump, the ongoing mindset of the reader, or something
else, I do not know. If the same thing persists with the next book in the
series, I will be done.
For another take on the book, please see this review by Lesa Holstine.
What Waits For You:
A Tully Jarsdel LAPD Novel
Joseph Schneider
Poison Pen Press
https://poisonedpenpress.com/books/
January 2021
ISBN#
978-1-4926-8447-3
Paperback (also
available in audio and eBook formats)
384 Pages
My read was an ARC provided by the publisher via Goodreads.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Friday, March 05, 2021
Monday, January 04, 2021
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Mail Call
Been awhile since I did this, but a couple of books arrived in the mail this past week. I prefer print so I glad to have them arrive here.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Review: One Day You’ll Burn: A Novel by Joseph Schneider
A coyote found the body
first as it lay at the base of a pagoda in Thailand Plaza. Driven by the fires
that had consumed Griffith Park moving her natural food sources away, the
scrawny coyote took off a chunk of thigh before the flashing lights and sirens
of the first officers to arrive on scene sent her scurrying off elsewhere this
new day.
Paramedics and firefighters
soon add to the scene further snarling traffic. Not only does that snarl of
traffic make it harder for morning commuters, it slows down the arrival of
Detectives Tully Jarsdel and Morales. Five years on the force and new to
homicide, the death of a person who was possibly tortured and then cooked alive
at high temperatures much like your Sunday dinner roast, becomes his case to
solve as lead detective in One Day You’ll Burn: A Novel by Joseph
Schneider.
This police procedural
combines a horrific case full of mystery in with elements of history and
philosophy to create a compelling and intense read. Jarsdel walked away from a
very promising career in academia and did so with tremendous personal
repercussions that continue years later. His background is going to play a
major role in the case as events unfold. A role that may encourage Morales and
others to lay off the jokes for a while.
In addition to the main
storyline, there are several secondary storylines at work in this debut police
procedural. One of which involves the killing of family pets and may disturb
some readers. Intense and very complicated, very graphic at times, One
Day You’ll Burn: A Novel is a
different read than a lot of the police procedurals you come across. It is also
incredibly good and very much recommended.
For another take on the
book, make sure to read Lesa Holstine’s review. I would not have read the book without this review by Lesa. The second book of the series, What Waits For You, is currently
scheduled to be released on January 5th.
One Day You’ll Burn: A Novel
Joseph Schneider
Poison Pen Press
February 2020
ISBN# 978-1-4926-8444-2
Paperback (also available in
audio and eBook formats)
336 Pages
My read came my way of the
Downtown Branch and ultimately to me through the “Library To Go” curbside
pickup program at the Lochwood Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2020
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