Shooters and Chasers

An apparent mugging gone wrong results in the murder of Wilson Willetts, a renowned Chicago architect, in Kleinfeld’s overly long so-so debut. Initially, the police have an open-and-shut case against Emilio Garcia, a drug-addicted loser identified by three eyewitnesses to the fatal shooting as the gunman. Indicted for the crime, Garcia goes to trial in a politically motivated prosecution. As Chicago PD detectives Mark Bergman and John Dunegan investigate further, they find that the suspect’s claim he was framed may have some credence. By having the story alternate between the police probe and the efforts to conceal the truth by the forces behind Willetts’s murder, the author eliminates any suspense about Garcia’s guilt. The formulaic plot includes such clichés as an implausible escape by one of the detectives from the bad guys’ clutches despite being restrained in a chair. (Jan.)