Silent Echo

From Booklist Jim Coleman, the first-person hero of this unusual novel, has one up on all those flawed detectives sulking through the genre. He’s dying. In fact, he’s darned near dead and so debilitated one wonders if he’ll make it back for the next chapter. He’d like, he says, to drift off snoozing in the sun. But he was a detective once. When a friend begs for Coleman’s help, what’s he to do? Especially since the murder victim was his long-ago lover. And the client? The “friend” who stole her from him. The details of the crime have spooky parallels with another murder—Coleman’s brother’s, 22 years ago. Coleman wears himself down, and the reader out, by wrapping himself in blankets to go question anyone who knows anything. This is a novel of detection, with clues gathered until a pattern forms and the killer is exposed. But there’s a bigger point, too: that Coleman can die in peace, now that detective work has solved at least one of life’s mysteries. Powerful stuff, to be sure, but readers should be prepared for a reading experience akin to a hospice visit. --Don Crinklaw About the Author J.R. Rain is the author of thirty-three mystery, supernatural, and romance novels and five short-story collections. He’s sold over one million books online. Moon Dance , his supernatural mystery, has been translated into four languages, with audio and film productions pending. The literary heir to Robert Parker, he writes novels featuring challenging characters, complicated relationships, and page-turning modernist prose. The gritty realism in his mystery novels comes courtesy of years working as a private eye. A So-Cal native, Rain relocated to an enigmatic and shadowy island outside Seattle.