Det Harriet Clark after losing her partner begins working with a new squad trying to solve several murders ( )

HIDE: A Detective Harriet Foster Thriller by Tracy Clark is the first book in a new police procedural series. It introduces a wide-ranging cast of characters and establishes a ground floor for what one can expect going forward. The solidly good book revolves around Detective Harriet Foster who has been through quite a lot in the last few months and years.

A black woman in a heavily male dominated environment, she brings a lot of baggage to her new posting in Chicago. Others have expectations who she is and those expectations may or may not be accurate. Word of what happened just a few weeks ago has made it to her new boss and colleagues at CPD’s District One. Her new partner, Jim Lonergan, appears to be your classic old school, non-politically correct cop straight out of Hollywood casting. Like the old rickety desk she is assigned, he is not fixable, so the two clash almost from the second they lay eyes on each other. Things are wrong from almost the get go, but that does not matter as they have a body this Monday morning.

It is also going to be a very high-profile case as the body was dumped on the Riverwalk. Part of the nearby legendary, Magnificent Mile, the body has a lot of witnesses. Many of those same witnesses have thoughts about how quickly police responded to the scene as Lonergan and Foster arrive to work the case. The murder and subsequent dumping of the body in a very public place means the pressure is on from all sides to solve the case.

It also won’t be the last body with the same signature style.

What follows is a complex and very enjoyable read. Marketed as a thriller, it comes across to this reader as a police procedural. Regardless of the marketing label, Foster, as well as nearly everyone in the read, are complex. The focus is on Foster, but the secondary characters get extensive details about themselves as well. None of the characters are simple as even Jim Lonergan is a bit more complex than it first appears.

Then there is the complexity of the case as the read shifts to follow other characters besides Harriet Foster. Plenty of action, misdirection, and a hunt for a killer drive HIDE: A Detective Harriet Foster Thriller forward at a steady pace. The very good read is well worth your time.

The second book in the series, Fall, is currently scheduled to come out on December 5th.

My paperback reading copy came from the Park Forest Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023 ( )

This book is a perfect crime thriller. It also touches on current problems in policing such as racism, sexism, police power and female officers. With one character being a psychologist, we also read about the psychology of serial killers. Author Tracy Clark knows alot about police procedures and its culture. She is an editor in Chicago and must have learned alot about policing from her day job.

The writing is crisp and this is what make it such a quick read. It's been awhile since I have read a novel written this good and I couldn't put it down. Even though the book is almost 400 pages, I finished it in one afternoon. The setting descriptions in the beginning of the story are spot on. As a Chicagoan myself, I recognized all of the street names and locales, including the lower level streets where are killers operate. Even the jogging path a character took was accurate.

The main character is Harriet Foster. She has been a police officer for 15 years but is coming into a different police district for this story. Her first partner, Officer Lonergan, is a long-time officer who does not care for female or minority officers and uses slang terms from a bygone era. I found them amusing but only because I am old enough to know these phrases. Harriet has a soft side because her son died, her marriage fell apart and her former police partner commit suicide. She is still reeling from these events but is trying to put them out of her mind so that she can continue to work. Harriet, or Harri, is a great character to base a series on. I can see that there is alot of room for character growth. Her second partner, Vera Li, connects with Harri better and I hope that they remain partners in future installments of the series. ( )

From acclaimed author Tracy Clark comes a page-turning mystery featuring hard-boiled Chicago detective Harriet Foster, who’s on the hunt for a serial killer with a deadly affinity for redheads.

When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.

Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team—and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.

After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.

In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets—including her own. ( )

Hunt and Hide
Review of the Amazon First Reads Kindle eBook (Dec. 1, 2022) released in advance of the official Thomas & Mercer paperback/Kindle/audiobook (Jan. 1, 2023)

I choose Hide for my Amazon First Reads pick for December 2022. It was promoted as the 'Police Procedural' selection for the month and the atmospheric cover art drew my attention over the other offers. I saw that Tracy Clark was also the author of the private detective Cass Raines (4 books 2018-2021) series. The author and all of her books are Chicago centred, so that seemed a good indication of authenticity.

This was a fast-paced read with relatively short chapters (83 of them over 377 pages) which alternated between the POVs of the Chicago Police Dept and those of the suspects. Harriet Foster is the lead character and she is the newly transferred detective in the homicide unit of her precinct. She is back from a personal leave from dealing with the aftermath of a former partner's suicide in her previous precinct which had not been foreseen. She carries that demon and also one caused by the earlier death of her own child due to robbery violence. Possibly as a sort of initiation, she is first partnered with the unit's dinosaur detective, and they clash and disagree on techniques and suspects almost immediately.

See photograph at https://www.attractionsofamerica.com/images/all_destinations/20190505120708_chic...
Chicago's Riverwalk area seen at night. Image sourced from Attractions of America.

Foster's first case with her new unit is a savage knife murder of a young woman whose body is left by Chicago's Riverwalk area. The brutal slaying indicates a Jack-the-Ripper level of psychopathy. Further killings are to follow making it a serial killer case in which the entire homicide unit eventually takes part. The suspect trail begins with an unconscious man found near the scene with a single blood smear on their clothing. Without the detectives initially being aware of them, there are interspersed chapters of Amelia and Bodie Morgan, an artist sister and her troubled stalker brother, the latter recently released from psychiatric care. It is gradually revealed that the Morgans have a dark family past and also that Bodie's psychiatrist is a woman with a secret history who is seeking a high profile psychopath on which to base her next book in order to 'get back in the limelight.' How far might she go to help 'create' that psychopath?

Both the police and suspect sides of this procedural are well drawn and the variety of suspects kept me guessing throughout. Although it initially seemed that the tortured and angsty cop stereotypes might get overplayed, those aspects did not play a large part and Harriet Foster comes across as a realistic character and each of the other detectives in the unit played a solid role with even the dinosaur cop showing some dedication. I was quite satisfied with this month's Amazon First Read.

Trivia and Links
Hide is the first book of a new Detective Harriet Foster series from author Tracy Clark. The second book in the series, titled Fall, is already planned for publication December 5, 2023.

Amazon Prime First Reads advance reading copies (ARCs) are available to Amazon Prime subscribers. They offer advance reads of books in Kindle eBook format one month before the date of official release. The current month's selection is available here (Link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region). ( )