Title: Unpunished
Author: Lisa Black
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Read: January 2017
Expected publication: 31 January 2017
Synopsis (Goodreads):
It begins with the kind of bizarre death that makes
headlines literally. A copy editor at the Cleveland Herald is found hanging
above the grinding wheels of the newspaper assembly line, a wide strap wrapped
around his throat. Forensic investigator Maggie Gardiner has her suspicions
about this apparent suicide inside the tsunami of tensions that is the news
industry today and when the evidence suggests murder, Maggie has no choice but
to place her trust in the one person she doesn t trust at all .
Jack Renner is a killer with a conscience, a vigilante with his own code of honor. In the past, Jack has used his skills and connections as a homicide detective to take the law into his own hands, all in the name of justice. He has only one problem: Maggie knows his secret. She insists he enforce the law, not subvert it. But when more newspaper employees are slain, Jack may be the only person who can help Maggie unmask the killer-- even if Jack is still checking names off his own private murder list."
My thoughts:
Unpunished is the second book in the Gardiner and Renner
series, featuring crime scene technician Maggie Gardiner and detective-by-day
and vigilante-by-night Jack Renner, who are asked to investigate the death of
the copy editor of the Cleveland Herald, a large daily newspaper on the brink
of bankruptcy. What first appeared to be a suicide soon turns into a murder
investigation, with more bodies stacking up as the story progresses. What could
be the motive behind killing the employees of a struggling newspaper?
Unpunished is a slow-moving police procedural, focusing heavily
on the technical details of Maggie’s forensic work and the background story of
the demise of the newspaper industry in our age of technology, which I
generally found interesting but which at times slowed the story down to a point
where I felt like skipping pages just to get on with it. I felt it needed a bit
of careful editing at this point to keep up the pace. The narrative didn’t
really grip me until Chapter 14, at which point there were enough bodies and
unanswered questions hanging in the air for it to be intriguing.
When I requested Unpunished from Netgalley I was unaware
that it was the second book in a series, and was somewhat puzzled by the
references to Maggie and Jack’s shared secret past, which play a prominent part
in the investigation and colour their professional relationship. Whilst
Unpunished is a stand-alone novel as far as the plot is concerned, it took me a
long time to work out the gist of the “secret” that binds Maggie and Jack
together. Not fully understanding the dynamics between the duo somewhat marred
my reading pleasure, though paradoxically it also served to keep me interested,
especially since Maggie is prepared to sacrifice her professional integrity to
tamper with evidence in order to help Jack. Why, why, WHY? Unfortunately, these questions were not fully
answered here – I guess I will have to read the first part of the series – and Jack
kept to the straight and narrow for the best part, not showing his true vigilante
side the book hints at. Personally, I found the story lacking in suspense and
an emotional bond with the main protagonists, who seemed to keep me at arms’
length at all times. I would have liked to get more of a feel for both Maggie
and Jack, and the forces that drove them, in order to be able to picture them
in my mind and care about them. All in all, I found Unpunished well written and
researched, with an interesting background story and well constructed plot.
Perhaps, had I read the first book in the series, Unpunished would have gripped
me a bit sooner and held my attention a bit better. As a stand-alone novel, it just
lacked an emotional connection for me, though I am intrigued enough by the
character of Jack to pick up That Darkness to see what I missed.
Thank you to
Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of
this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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