The 2nd in a series of Dax McGowan mysteries, Lieutenant McGowan aids his best friend in the NYPD, Special Victims Unit detective, Janet Meehan. Someone is murdering nuns in one of the poorest areas of the Bronx, but only those nuns who still wear the old-fashioned veiled habits. At the same time, Dax's career comes into jeopardy while handling a case well outside his skills as a homicide detective. It's a case assigned to him by his tyrannical boss, Police Commissioner, Jeremiah Gallagher that contains for Dax a host of unexpected dangers.
Dax is called in to help on a serial killer caseby one of his best friends in the NYPD, SVU detective, Janet Meehan. This psychopath is murdering nuns in the Mott Haven area of the Bronx, a place where 50,000 of the poorest people all live within one square mile of the city. The profile they develop turns out to be as confusing as the motives behind the killer's ritualistic methods of torture and death.
At the same time, Dax's tyrannical boss, the Police Commissioner, pulls him off all his other cases to help figure out why the PC's daugher, a rookie cop is suddenly suffering from bouts of near catatonia and been taken off duty as a result. The medical professionals can find no physical reason for her condition and the psychatric community is baffled. While totally outside Dax's revered skills as a homicide detective, he offers no objections to taking on the task as it relates all too well to his personal feelings that revolve around the death of his daughter a year earlier. The discoveries lying around every corner however, end up bringing his famed career into mortal danger.
Excerpt
Was she to be raped? Would her lifelong vow of chastity be broken in the last seconds of her life? She had been careless defying the posted warnings of this danger. Would God forgive her the error leading to this desecration of her body?
She watched as the attacker gradually pulled the knife back and thrust it between her legs. Paralyzed, the act had no meaning for her at first. A moment later, she saw the faint reflection of what she knew was blood flowing over cobblestones and into a drain in the middle of the alley.
It seemed from nowhere, her limp left arm suddenly appeared before her unblinking eyes, and the back of her hand was pushed in front of her face. At the end of a fear-filled pause, her palm was savagely stabbed with the knife, piercing through several times and twisting in a boring motion. Any attempt to shut her eyes or pull away was futile. The ritual was repeated to her right palm. Would that be the end of it? She prayed that it would.
Not so. The index finger of a latex-gloved hand slid across the top of her left breast, stopping above it and pressed between two ribs. A scalpel-filled other hand then moved in to pierce her torso there in a most delicate fashion. Her fear accelerated. Instinct told her whatever had been sliced below her rib cage was something critical.
Creeping slowly like a crazed lizard over her exposed body, the assailant’s masked head hovered above her face. A cloud of aroused hot breath spread like a heavy fog over her nose and mouth. In a flash, the knife was thrust into her left eye, and her mind screamed from its core. The knife was raised again above her right eye, but hung in anticipation, as the fiend lifted the mask long enough to expose a face sneering a look of hate-filled disgust.
“No. No. Not you!” were the last words the nun’s mind spoke. What little she was able to see was beginning to fade. She sensed her life ebbing away from somewhere inside her chest as a barely perceptible glint off the knife’s blade came crashing through her remaining eye. A few seconds more, the blackness of death gripped her soul, and it was over.
Professional Reviews
A tale worth telling, well told!
I read the first Dax McGowan book out of curiosity. I read this, the second, because I really liked the first. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that Harney had outdone himself, turning out a story even more compelling and intriguing than the first. Once again, a well-crafted plot awaits the reader, as McGowan finds himself in the midst of a twisting, turning yarn of serial-killing mayhem. Be assured, McGowan is more than equal to the task, in no small part due to his dual-sided conversations with himself as both Holmes and Watson. Bottom line? "Six" is a tale worth telling well told. It's also a darn good read. All in all, a nice job on Harney's part this second time around. It certainly wets one's appetite for a third!
A second hit for Mr Harney and his lead character ...
A second hit for Mr Harney and his lead character Dax McGowan. A more complex mystery for Dax to solve with several potential "perps" along the way to a surprise ending. It is fast paced and kept me turning pages until 4:45 AM to finish it. Read this book.
G Mills
Dr. Roberta Paul Horton
In reading the latest mystery of Dax McGowan I found myself going back to my days in New York when I was much younger. Crossing the bridges and driving around the city made this book so alive for me. If you have an enthusiasm for Sherlock Holmes you will appreciate how the detective Dax muses to solve the murders. Years ago when I was teaching in Hoboken, New Jersey, a nun was murdered and so the book gave me chills of memory. I encourage all to read this second book of Jack Harney's and I am looking forward to the next book
