Tin Men
A Crime Novel
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Three crooked cops going straight after a murderer
Woody was working on getting high when the phone rang. Dennis was on a date — it was a date he paid for, but a date all the same. Os had blood on his hands from a little extracurricular law enforcement. All three men picked up their phones because they were cops, and cops are never really off-duty — not even when they’re crooked.
Detective Julie Owen was savagely killed in her own bed, and the unborn child she was carrying is nowhere to be found. The grisly crime has the brass breathing down the necks of the three detectives tasked with finding Julie’s killer. Woody, Dennis, and Os each shared a bond with Julie that went deeper than the blue of their uniforms and have their own reasons to want to find the person responsible for her murder. Secrets drive the investigation — secrets that need to stay buried long enough to solve the case.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Knowles (Rocks Beat Paper) takes a break from Wilson, the hard-edged antihero of his past six novels, and proves he can write police just as well as he can criminals. After Hamilton, Ont. Det. Julie Owen is gruesomely killed and her unborn child stolen from her womb, three cops who all have unspoken connections to Julie catch the case. Os Green is "the heavy: a blunt tool that could only follow a line if it was on the way to someone's jaw." His partner, "Woody" Woodward, can "probe a suspect for weaknesses and exploit them without crossing a single line," but he's hiding a drug addiction. And Dennis Hamlet, a cop both partners dislike, is hiding a sexual proclivity he is not entirely comfortable with. As the mystery travels a twisted path where "Not every cop is dirty, but the good ones are," Knowles plays the procedural aspects of the story against his characters, expertly scrutinizing how their personalities and psychology affect how they approach their jobs. Knowles may slightly overplay the cynical nature of his world with its hardboiled dialogue, unflinching brutality, and casual misogyny, but overall the novel is a dark, effective story that should please fans of world-weary police procedurals such as Ed McBain's classic 87th Precinct series.
