The best part of Callie McFee\u2019s post-work evening run is chatting with Barney, an unhoused man who always sits on the same park bench on her route. Thanks to her brother, State, a local homicide detective, she\u2019s one of the first people to hear the tragic news of her friend\u2019s fatal shooting. Just as shocking is the notepad that cops find on Barney, which suggests he was compiling information on Callie herself. This discovery makes the McFees nervous; she\u2019d confided quite a lot to Barney, and one particular tidbit\u2014her power-broker father\u2019s dementia\u2014is one that the family has long fought to keep secret. The authorities surmise that Barney\u2019s death was a mugging gone wrong, but something more sinister may be afoot. As Callie looks into the case, she discovers that he wasn\u2019t the man she thought she knew; he\u2019d jotted notes about other people as well, including Callie\u2019s new \u201cbench buddies,\u201d whom she meets over the course of her investigation. These were Barney\u2019s friends, but if there\u2019s a chance that he uncovered something incriminating about one of them, they\u2019re all potential suspects. One could easily say the same thing about the McFees, however\u2014and indeed, Callie and State do what they can to prevent their father\u2019s condition from going public. Circumstances become more dire when one of Barney\u2019s friends is brutally murdered. Callie vows to get to the bottom of it all, even if it means confronting a merciless killer.<\/p>\n
Conrad\u2019s whodunit offers exemplary plotting, opening with a scene that reintroduces series hero Callie and establishes Barney as her warmhearted confidant. It\u2019s not long before there\u2019s a murder, followed by a string of surprises, such as what Barney\u2019s pal Daisy finds when she pokes around his former bench. Callie is a smart and sublimely practical gumshoe; she knows exactly what police do at a crime scene, and although she doesn\u2019t immediately tell State about every piece of evidence she finds, she keeps him informed as much as possible. The seemingly simple case turns increasingly complex, especially after more characters enter the narrative\u2014each new \u201cbench buddy,\u201d for instance, comes with a fresh personality and a backstory that, on occasion, isn\u2019t entirely true. Standouts among the cast include the gruff but reliable State; Gil Morales, Callie\u2019s father\u2019s plainspoken \u201cnumber two\u201d; and a few suspects whom Callie gradually learns to trust. The book\u2019s abundant dialogue scenes pop, and Callie picks up many details through casual conversation. Her deductive skills are without question, as well; she takes her time deciphering the shorthand in Barney\u2019s notepads, and she notices when people slip up (although maybe not right away). As in the preceding installment, Sins of the Family\u00a0(2022), the humor is quick and sharp: Gil, for example, sidelines a discussion with Callie by noting, \u201cI need to get you ready for a funeral.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not that bad off,\u201d she jokes, to which he clarifies, \u201cNot yours.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The best part of Callie McFee\u2019s post-work evening run is chatting with Barney, an unhoused man who always sits on the same park bench on her route. Thanks to her brother, State, a local homicide detective, she\u2019s one of the first people to hear the tragic news of her friend\u2019s fatal shooting. Just as shocking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}