If hoops fans have trouble getting past the six-foot-11-inch "point guard" who's the prime suspect in Erickson's third mystery to feature Minneapolis police detective Marshall "Mars" Bahr (after 2002's The Dead Survivors), too bad for them: they stand to miss out on an edge-of-your-courtside-seat thriller that catches readers in a full-court press and never lets up. From the outset, there seems no question that Minnesota Timberwolves star Tayron Jackman is responsible for his wife's brutal murder. The mystery is how
he pulled it off. Plagued by his emotionally draining ex-wife, Mars has only nine days left in the homicide division to crack the case. The author moves sure-handedly from police department in-fighting to subtle ways children cope with stress, from seedy strip clubs to an embattled mayor's office, from the vernaculars of forensic specialists, EMTs and federal judges to Bryant Gumbel's interviewing style. The crisp, informed writing is marred, though, by overuse of sentences starting with Which, spread indiscriminately among the novel's many, otherwise wonderfully distinct, characters. More seriously, Mars's first-person narration at times lapses into a nonspecific voice that lacks Mars's zing. And Mars's fifth-grade son taking Advanced Placement Algebra? As improbable as a point guard who stands just under seven feet. In a novel so scrupulous in its details, these slips linger like an official's bad call. Fortunately, they don't affect the outcome of what is a most satisfying crime game. Regional author tour.
(May 5)
