I was disappointed by this, the third Alex Delillo novel. I’d previously enjoyed Frost’s Never Fear, but found this to be both preposterous and skippable: no point of return.
Whereas Alex Delillo of the Pasadena PD seemed quite a different sort of protagonist in the earlier book, with positive personal relationships and respect for her colleagues, here she runs all the classically stupid risks you’d expect of an out-of-control maverick cop, and it’s all so ridiculously portentous that you just want to tell her to get a grip.
Like Spook Country (see review below), this book has Iraq (and GPS chips) as part of its backdrop, but not for one moment does it seem reasonable for a detective in the Pasadena PD to get involved in the affairs of a bunch of mercenaries and military types (who operate a long way out of her jurisdiction) in her search for a missing LAPD cop she met once at a conference. What?
Conspiracy is it? Cover up? Another one?
The inner voice of Delillo, as she agonises and labours every point and lurches from place to place, grates on the nerves. What has this got to do with her job? Nothing. But she takes “a few days off” anyway to look into matters, never seeming to notice that she’s making everything a lot worse than it was to start with. There are no scenes here with more than two people: Delillo goes through a series of one-on-ones with people who either (a) drop dead, or (b) disappear, and whinges so much about every little thing that goes wrong that you wish she’d (a) drop dead, or (b) disappear.
No point, no return, not recommended.
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