Tyler Dilts

Author Tyler Dilts crafts a story of compassion and humanity around a retired cop, forced to retire with a traumatic brain injury after being shot in the head, and his aging father, who suffers from early stage dementia. Their daily struggles to get through the day, with meals, medicines, doctor's appointments are disrupted when their tenant and friend Grace disappears, and we slowly learn how she came to live with them and why. She fits in with them, and her sudden absence is palpable. We see retired cop Ben begin to heal by working on the missing persons case, despite his formidable mental obstacles. The story is well done, and even minor characters, like the dog-walking neighbor, are meaningful and developed.… (altro)

This is a solidly engaging but unexceptional police procedural. The writing is fluid and easy to understand but doesn't have much style. Two Long Beach, California police detectives, the male still grieving for his dead wife, and the female who is also a martial arts instructor, investigate the brutal murder of a teacher in her classroom after school. The investigation is a bit plodding, however, and at one point even ignores an obvious suspect. You know twists are coming, and they do. The ending is satisfying, but it is the growing relationship between the two detectives that is really the heart of the book. The author is much better at characterization than plotting. So despite my lukewarm review, I actually just clicked and bought the next in the series from Amazon (but the Kindle version was only 99 cents, and I had a credit...) I should mention that this is also one of those books where the author can't restrain from commenting on a lot of other books, songs, Starbucks, etc. There is a right way to blend these references in that can add realism to a story, but it is a bit awkward here.

I listened to the audio book, which was very well read by Alex Hyde-White.… (altro)