Jerry Sykes, Lose this Skin

Lose this Skin

Jerry Sykes

Five Star, Feb 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 15941453779

In Camdentown, England Detective Inspector Frank Roscoe still seeks the drive-by gunman who shattered his left heel seven months ago. Several days a week, Roscoe returns to the Echo Barn bar, the scene of the crime, hoping to find a witness, but so far nothing. Physically he is nearly back to what he was, but mentally the wounds remain festering.

Family friend Rhiannon Burns pleads with Roscoe to investigate the death of her ten-year-old son Karl in a domestic violence incident in which a police car hit the child. She thinks the cops were trying to hit someone else, but a push sent her son into the path of the vehicle. Roscoe assumes this is a grieving mother looking for a purpose to her child's tragic death, but to mollify her he agrees to investigate the incident. He quickly reassesses his first opinion of a tragic accident as it begins to appear the driver, a cop, purposely targeted someone in the crowd. Motivated for the first time since his incident, Frank digs deeper into what happened.

LOSE THIS SKIN is a fascinating, private-investigative tale starring a cop on medical leave haunted by a personal incident that he cannot let go of until the grieving mother hooks him into making inquiries into her son's wrongful death. Readers will initially agree with Frank and the police department that Karl's death was a tragedy and his mom cannot let go, but will begin to change their minds (like Frank does) as the injured detective begins to uncover disparities. Tragic accident or murder of the wrong person, fans will want to know as Jerry Sykes writes a wonderful mystery.

Harriet Klausner