Detective P.T. Marsh has been on a downward spiral since the deaths of his wife and son, mostly drinking his life away. Now he may have killed someone... He's just not sure because he can't remember much from the night before, only that he helped an exotic dancer by beating up her boyfriend. Now the boyfriend is dead and Marsh's fingerprints are all over the crime scene. And, it keeps getting worse - the murdered man may be the lead suspect in the case of a lynching of a young black boy...
This is one hell of a book. It's not often I read books where the main character gets called to a murder scene only for him to realize that he may be the one who did the deed... P.T. Marsh quickly climbed the top of my list of favorite characters. He and his dog Purvis, who Marsh can "hear" berating or warning him, were a delight to read about. Marsh hasn't been well since he lost his family, and the situation in this book is miserable and can only get worse. But he's also the kind of guy that, despite everything, will try to solve the case of the lynched boy. Not to mention figure out if he killed a man or not. Additionally, the story seems to lean slightly into the paranormal realm; nothing too weird or over the top, but things occur that make you wonder, and that made me like the story even more.
THE GOOD DETECTIVE is the first book about Detective P.T. Marsh, but I already long for more books. I found the story to be engrossing and addictive. I just love a truly well- written Southern crime story.
Introducing Detective P.T. Marsh in a swift and bruising
debut where Elmore Leonard's staccato prose meets Greg Iles'
Southern settings.
How can you solve a crime if you've killed the prime
suspect?
Detective P.T. Marsh was a rising star on the police force
of Mason Falls, Georgia--until his wife and young son died
in an accident. Since that night, he's lost the ability to
see the line between smart moves and disastrous decisions.
Such as when he agrees to help out a woman by confronting
her abusive boyfriend. When the next morning he gets called
to the scene of his newest murder case, he is stunned to
arrive at the house of the very man he beat up the night
before. He could swear the guy was alive when he left, but
can he be sure? What's certain is that his fingerprints are
all over the crime scene.
The trouble is only beginning. When the dead body of a black
teenager is found in a burned-out field with a portion of a
blackened rope around his neck, P.T. realizes he might have
killed the number-one suspect of this horrific crime.
Amid rising racial tension and media scrutiny, P.T. uncovers
something sinister at the heart of the boy's murder--a
conspiracy leading all the way back to the time of the Civil
War. Risking everything to unravel the puzzle even as he
fights his own personal demons, P.T. races headlong toward
an incendiary and life-altering showdown.
No excerpt available.
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