Dead Connection

From Publishers Weekly Putting feisty DA Samantha Kincaid on hold after three novels ( Close Case , etc.), Burke introduces a disappointingly dull heroine in 30-year-old NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher. Flamboyant homicide detective Flann McIlroy asks outspoken Ellie to assist in looking into the First Date case, a series of murders seemingly connected by the female victims' subscription to an online-dating site. Flann is relying on curvy Ellie as date bait, but also hopes that Ellie's past might help with the case: Ellie's father, a Wichita, Kans., cop, died under mysterious circumstances soon after bringing an infamous local serial killer, the College Hill Strangler, to justice. As Ellie and Flann dig deeper into the shady history of the dating site—and its potential link to the Russian mafia—Ellie realizes that the killer is taunting her just as the College Hill Strangler taunted her father. Ellie's character never quite gels, however, and her interactions with the suspects don't provide enough tension or heat to keep pages turning all the way through. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library Journal Adult/High School–New York Detective Ellie Hatcher has been recruited by a Manhattan Homicide Task Force to assist renegade detective Flann McIlroy (whose nickname McIl Mulder alludes to his unusual way of solving his cases). The two are on the trail of a serial killer who is using an Internet matchmaking company called FirstDate. Soon they are enmeshed in the world of Internet socializing where the users trust that their identities can be hidden, but the reality is that those with the right skills can track down anyone online. And people are dying. There are a lot of subplots involving Ellie's family, other officers, the Russian mafia, and the FBI, and the plot twists and folds back on itself nicely at the end. –Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist New York City is worlds away from Ellie Hatcher's childhood home of Wichita, Kansas. While the rookie detective has come to feel at home in Manhattan, memories of her late father, a career Kansas police officer, remain in her mind. While his death was ruled a suicide, Ellie knows in her heart that Jerry Hatcher was yet another victim of the serial killer he worked so tirelessly to catch. As the novel opens, Ellie takes a special assignment with the NYPD homicide division to pursue a psychopath who preys on single women searching for love online. She must navigate a brave new cyberworld where personal lives are laid bare with the click of a mouse. This is the first stand-alone for Burke, author of three novels in the Samantha Kincaid series. Though she possesses many of the prose gifts of her father, acclaimed mystery writer James Lee Burke, the author here suffers from too many plot threads and enough characters for two books. Still, too much of a good thing is better than not enough. Allison Block Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Alafair Burke delivers a first-rate thriller, as a rookie detective investigates the dark side of internet dating while trying to survive the mean streets of New York. Absolutely riveting."--Lisa Gardner, author of Gone "Alafair Burke proves her flair for creating compelling characters and a tricky plot in Dead Connection . Fans of detective fiction will enjoy young, complicated Ellie Hatcher as she willingly, frighteningly, plays victim, hoping to trap a killer."--Perri O'Shaughnessy, author of Keeper Of The Keys "These are characters I'd follow forever! Dead Connection is a sleek and utterly riveting thriller that deserves every accolade it is sure to get."--Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Mephisto Club "Engaging characters, dark subject matter, and a compelling story. A suspenseful and entertaining read."--Kathy Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of Break No Bones A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School and lives in New York City. She is the daughter of the acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke. Her three novels in the Samantha Kincaid series, Judgment Calls , Missing Justice , and Close Case , are available in paperback from St. Martin's Press. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One The man's first look at the newspaper item was a casual one, followed immediately by a more deliberate perusal. But it was the photograph accompanying the story that had him transfixed. Caroline Hunter had preoccupied his thoughts in recent weeks, but this was his first opportunity to reflect on her appearance. To his surprise, she reminded him of a girl he had worked hard not to think about for a very long time. So proud. So uppity. Caroline Hunter had the look of a woman convinced of her own intelligence, a woman who assumed she could do whatever she wanted--get whatever she wanted--without any repercussions. The man wondered if Caroline Hunter had any regrets as those two bullets tore through her body. Maybe for some women it took dying in the street like a dog to reflect upon one's decisions and the effects they have on others. He felt his muscles tense, crumpling the pages of newsprint in his hands. Then he placed the paper neatly onto the breakfast table, took another sip of tea, and looked down at the muted traffic in the street below the window. He smiled. Fate was presenting him an even more promising opportunity than he had understood when he first spotted the article. Details remained to be worked out, but he was certain of one thing: Caroline Hunter was only the beginning. There would be more stories, just like this one, about women just like her. Three hundred and sixty-four days later, Amy Davis finished a second glass of red wine, pondering which excuse she should exploit to call it a night. She should have known better than to agree to a first date that started at eleven o'clock. Even by New York City standards, such a late invitation was an unequivocal sign that the guy wanted to avoid the cost of dinner but leave open the possibility of a spontaneous one-nighter. But then the guy--he claimed his name was Brad--had suggested meeting at Angel's Share, not one of the usual meat markets. Amy still thought of the cozy lounge as her secret oasis, tucked so discreetly inside a second-floor dive Japanese restaurant on Stuyvesant Street. She decided to take Brad's awareness of the place as a sign. Then she looked out her apartment window and saw the snow, the first of the season. To Amy, the first flakes of winter were magical, almost spiritual. Watching them fall to the quiet square of grass beneath the oversized bay windows at Angel's Share would be fantastic, much more satisfying than observing them from the fire escape of her fifth-floor Avenue C walk-up. And so Amy had taken a risk. None of the previous risks had panned out, but that didn't mean that Brad wouldn't. Besides, all she had to lose was another night at home with Chowhound the persian cat, falling asleep to the muted glow of her television. Three weeks earlier, she had committed herself to this process, and nights like this were the price she would have to pay if she were ever going to find The One. She knew the date was a mistake precisely one second after she heard the voice behind her at the bar's entrance. "Are you Amy?" It was a nice voice. Deep, but not brusque. Friendly, but calm. For exactly one second, she was optimistic. For that one second, she believed that Brad with the good voice, who was familiar with Angel's Share, whose first date with her fell with the first snow, might just make a good companion for the evening, if not more. Then the second passed, and she turned to meet the man who went with the voice. The truth was, Amy did not care about looks. People said that all the time, but Amy actually meant it. Her ex-boyfriend--perhaps he had never become a boyfriend, but the man she'd most recently dated--had been handsome as hell, but by the time they were through, she found him repulsive. This time, she was putting looks aside to focus on the qualities that counted. Brad's face was not unattractive, but neither was it familiar--a surprise to Amy since they had exchanged multiple pictures over the last week. Internet daters posted photographs, so, even though Amy did not particularly care, she looked. It was nice, after all, to have a visual image to go with the instant messages and e-mails. This face in front of her, however, did not match the image she'd carried. As Brad squeezed through a small group of people to ask the host for a table, she mentally shuffled through the pictures he'd sent and realized that in most, his face had been obscured--sunglasses on both the fishing boat and the ski slopes, a hat on the golf course, a darkened dinner table at some black tie event. One head shot had been pretty clear, but even a toad could eke out one good picture. In retrospect, she realized she had used that one good picture to fill in the blanks on the rest. Once they were seated, Amy tried to put her finger on precisely what was different. The face was puffier. Older, too. In fact, Brad looked much older than the thirty-eight years he claimed in his profile. Sure, she might have shaved off a couple of years herself, but she was talking much older in his case. She realized there was no point in getting bogged down in the differences. He looked completely different than she had envisioned, and that was that. By the end of the first glass of wine, she knew it wasn't just Brad's face that didn't match up to his online counterpart. According to Brad's profile, he was a gourmand and a red wine junkie. She allowed him to order first, afraid she might embarrass herself with a passé selection. After he requested a cheap Merlot mass-produced in California, she proceeded to ask for a Barbera d'Asti. If Brad was going to lie, then she was going to rack up Piedmont prices on his tab. He talked about work while he drank, pausing only to take big gulps from his glass. Commercial litigation. A motion for summary judgment. Something about jurisdiction and somebody who lacked it. An appeal. His monologue would have been boring at eleven thirty in the morning, but Amy found it sleep-inducing at this late hour. She tried shifting the conversation, resorting to all of the subjects he'd gone on about in his e-mails--independent films, running, his photography hobby. Each topic was a bust, sparking nothing other than a brief expression of surprise on Brad's unfamiliar face. Reaching for her coat, Amy did not see Brad order the second round until it was too late. Nearly an hour into the date, Brad finally took a break from his running legal commentary. "I'm sorry. I've been working so hard it's tricky to turn it off sometimes. I should ask you about yourself." The brief glimmer of hope Amy allowed herself was dashed when he proceeded to make good on his perceived obligation. "So which publishing house do you work for?" he asked. "Pardon me?" "You're an editor, right? Which house?" Her confusion must have been apparent. "Oh, right. No, you're a . . . a fund-raiser. For the Museum of Modern Art, right? So how's that going for you?" It was going, she thought, much better than this date. The jerk had actually mixed her up with some other stupid woman he was duping online. The wine was good, and the view of the snow was wondrous, but nothing was worth this humiliation. She selected her excuse and went with it. "I know I said I was up for a late night, but I took a painkiller earlier for this problem I'm having with my rotator cuff." She rubbed her right shoulder for effect. "With the wine on top of it, I'm feeling a little loopy." "Let me walk you home," Brad suggested brightly, clearly spotting an opportunity in her feigned high. "No, really, I'm fine. I'm just around the corner," she lied. She might be an idiot for signing on to this endeavor, but she knew better than to tell any of them where she lived. Amy didn't bother waiting once he signaled for the check. She yawned conspicuously and began to maneuver out of the booth as she pulled on her coat. Before Brad could rise for the awkward good-night peck, she shook his hand abruptly and thanked him for the wine he had yet to pay for. Then, after a quick scramble down the narrow staircase, through the exit of the Japanese restaurant, she was out of there. She was alone, free of that lame excuse for a date. It struck her then that two or three times a week, for the last three weeks, she had reached the end of the evening with this same feeling. She had made a ridiculous pact with herself to "get out there," to finally meet a man she could see for more than a month, to finally meet a man she could trust and even love. But, at the end of a night like this, she was always happier once she was able to get out of there. After an hour with Brad, the idea of watching snow from her fire escape didn't sound half bad. Amy walked through the East Village, smoking a Marlboro Light, with a new appreciation of her solitude. She was a thirty-one-year-old woman living in Manhattan. She had a painless enough job in a kick-ass museum. She got to see mind-blowing art every day. She had fifty-one different delivery menus in her kitchen drawer and really good hair. She had a big fat persian cat named Chowhound. Tomorrow she would treat herself to some street shopping, where only in this city could twenty bucks buy you a seemingly authentic designer handbag. There were worse things in life than being on her own. The snow was starting to stick by the time she reached the alphabet blocks on the Lower East Side. Amy's father still didn't approve of her choice of neighborhoods, but her parents had been overprotective ever since that problem back home. She kept telling him that times had changed since he formed his impressions of the city. Every location in Manhattan was safe now, and the Lower East Side was all she could afford. She had her key ring in her hand and was already unzipping her coat when she heard the noise from the alley. Mew. "Chowhound?... Read more