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I discover another fine first-time novelist; my review of Larry Quartley's Closure 2/11/2014 7:12:27 AM
Continuing on my magical mystery tour of new and self-published writers, here's my review of a very good police drama. A woman is raped and murdered in her apartment. The evidence points at her boyfriend, who promptly goes on the run, which pretty much convinces everyone involved in the case that he is guilty. But when D.I. Zachary Taylor begins to search for the wanted man he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy that involves other police officers, a high-level drug dealer, and powerful business people.
Author Quartley has written a gripping novel, spinning a complex web of deceit that keeps the police, and the reader, guessing. His characters are compelling, and well-fleshed out, which is not an easy thing to do when writing yet another story of a rogue cop who steps on toes and breaks the rules in his search for the truth. There is a certain familiarity to many of these characters (such as the female partner who helps Taylor out despite her better judgment; the by-the-book superior officer who is constantly reining our hero in; the rich businessman with a dark secret who has locked horns with our hero in the past, to name a few archetypes), but Quartley infuses his book with enough energy and originality to make Closure a welcome addition to the genre.
He is skilled at building tension in his scenes, so that the danger that the characters are in becomes palpable. The dialogue is realistically rough, considering the many unsavoury characters that populate the story. Although the plot is full of confusing twists and turns, he keeps it moving forward, with the central mystery being revealed at just the right pace.
I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed this book, enough to almost ignore the occasional typos and sometimes haphazard punctuation, which are usually huge pet peeves for me. If the author ever cleans up his manuscript of those niggling little mistakes that interrupt the enjoyment and flow of the story, he will have a truly excellent book. But, even taking that complaint into account, I can still highly recommend this true page-turner.
This review originally appeared on Amazon.com athttp://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1TB4FNVY9X104/ref=pdp_new_read_full_review_link?ie=UTF8&page=1&sort_by=MostRecentReview#R1RYWH3T8YIWRI
