Detective
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4.6 • 61 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A death row confession sparks an investigation that will tear Miami apart in this "engrossing thriller" from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Booklist).
Detective-Sergeant Malcolm Ainslie, a former Catholic priest, is about to start his vacation when a call comes in from death row. Before serial killer Elroy Doil is taken to the electric chair, he wants to make a full confession to the cop who put him away. To close the books on additional murder cases in which Doil is a suspect, Ainslie drives four hundred miles to Florida State Prison.
Although Doil confesses to ten other homicides, he insists that he didn't commit the crime for which he will be executed the following day: the grisly slaying of a city commissioner and his wife. In his search for the real killer, Ainslie will discover that the upper levels of Miami's government—including some of his closest colleagues—are more corrupt and dangerous than he ever imagined.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Old pro Hailey (The Evening News; Airport; etc.) remains adept at hooking readers with his propulsive brand of storytelling. In this full-throttled thriller, he sweeps readers into a series of gory murders of older married couples in south Florida, the twisted mind of the killer, the intramural politics of the Miami PD and the truly horrible childhood abuse of a major character. Along the way, Hailey finds time for ample musing on the death penalty, Catholicism and the grand jury system. His protagonist is Miami homicide detective Malcolm Ainsley, an ex-priest who spots the clues for the serial murders in the Book of Revelations, successfully picks out the likeliest perp and catches him red-handed. Elroy "Animal" Doil, convicted and on death row, asks Ainsley to hear his confession: Doil insists that, yes, he killed 14 people--but he didn't kill the rich and politically powerful parents of Cynthia Ernst, Ainsley's unforgiving ex-lover and PD superior. There's a bit of flat writing ("the aptly named Sunshine State"), but the execution and child-abuse scenes are searing, the procedural detail gripping. It's a measure of Hailey's skill as a storyteller that he gives up the killer way before the end but still manages to maintain the suspense.
