Done Wrong

Introduced in Dead Time (1992), widow Marti MacAlister is a moral and tenacious, middle-class black policewoman. In her fourth appearance, the former Chicago cop, now a homicide detective in a northern suburb, investigates the mysterious death three years earlier of her husband, Johnny, a narc. A colleague of Johnny's has apparently committed suicide, but his widow convinces Marti that both officers' deaths may not have been what they seemed. One of their superiors, retired to a life of suspicious affluence, has recently taken to cruising the streets with a loaded gun. As Marti investigates, she confronts difficult memories and the realization that her husband may have kept a secret or two. Everything about Bland's writing is subdued--the action is studied and clinical, the detecting methodical; even the angst is low-key and familial as Marti and her two children continue to adjust to their new suburban lives. Sticking to gritty, unglamorous storytelling, Bland may not write the most exciting mysteries around, but the understated Marti is a strong, quiet presence, and her story resonates. (June)