TITLE: Missing Persons
SERIES #: Buddy Steel #1
CHARACTERS: Buddy Steel
AUTHOR: Michael Brandman
PUBLICATION DATE: 09/29/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N
BOOK SYNOPSIS:
MISSING PERSONS is the first book in the new Buddy Steel mystery series by New York Times best selling author, Michael Brandman.
Steel… smart, aggressive, ironic, spare and cynical… has been content working homicide at the LAPD until his father, the legendary Sheriff Burton Steel, falls ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Sheriff Steel is headquartered in Freedom, a privileged coastal community located a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. His health failing, he asks his son Buddy to come home to cover his back and to groom him to be his successor.
Buddy reluctantly agrees. He returns to Freedom despite having outgrown its small town limits, wary of his father’s authoritarianism.
No sooner does he hit town than Buddy learns the wife of the high-flying star of a Freedom based world-renowned television ministry has gone missing. A visit to the woman’s home leads to a hostile confrontation with her husband’s family and Buddy’s realization that something greater than simply a missing person is at stake.
Allegiance between father and son provides the backdrop for Buddy’s complex investigation of twisted families, avaricious con artists, violent gangs, drugs, corruption, and murder. And added to the mix is an enigmatic femme fatale who succeeds in upending Buddy’s tenets regarding contemporary relationships.
MISSING PERSONS is its own book, yet crime fiction fans will find it a joy to trace its literary lineage from Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker through to Sue Grafton and Michael Connelly.
REVIEW:
2.5 Hearts This was so not what I hoped it would be. I could never find myself liking Steel at all. He is just so rude and brash and everything else you imagine a LAPD officer is (especially in this day and age). This seemed to put every stereotypical attitude that we are hearing about nowadays. Maybe it was because of all the tensions the country is going through in real life but I found myself pissed at the author for perpetuating the stereotype. Not all cops are rude and uncaring.
The suspense part was ok but I think I was already beyond caring by the time we were supposed to care.
Just not for me.
Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I loved STRANGER IN THE LAKE. It was so good.
Great books.
Happy reading.