Backlash
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Four cops, from four precincts, all shot dead. Originally published in 1989, Backlash is the second compulsive whodunit in the Jack Stryker series. From Paula Gosling, winner of the CWA Golden Dagger.
A wave of chaos is erupting through the American police force. With four officers dead, Detective Lieutenant Jack Stryker is called upon to investigate. Alongside his partner Agent Dana Marchant, he must track the killer. But are these homicides linked? Or is the perp choosing victims at random?
When a federal investigator appears on the killer’s hit list, the simple answers seem to be disappearing way too fast. Their target is a marksman with an uncanny criminal mind and a ruthlessly persistent purpose – and time is running out . . .
Backlash is the second entry in the Jack Stryker series. It is followed by Ricochet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gosling's ninth whodunit doesn't measure up to its predecessors (which include award-winners Monkey Puzzle and Running Duck ). In a city called Grantham, a sniper kills police officers and escapes each time without a trace. Lt. Jack Stryker and the other detectives are at an impasse when Dana Marchant from the Justice Department arrives at police headquarters to investigate the murder of an undercover FBI agent. Sharing information with Dana, Stryker and his partner keep the computer hopping as they look for clues in the lives of the victims, but then the two men are wounded by the ghostly shooter and temporarily sidelined. Later there is a showdown in which Dana shines at canny sleuthing and hand-to-hand combat. The author tries for realism with details about the cops' romances and intense friendships. But high-flown prose and unconvincing characters dilute the effects, hinting that an able storyteller had an off day.
