Denny’s Law

Gunn’s enjoyable sixth Sarah Burke police procedural (after 2014’s Red Man Down) finds the Tucson, Ariz., homicide detective, her mother, boyfriend Will, and niece Denny settled under the same roof. It’s the Fourth of July, and before Sarah can get out the door for what promises to be a whiz-bang family picnic, duty calls. An elderly man appears to have been beaten to death in his home in one of Tucson’s poorer neighborhoods. The case gets complicated when not so much as a Medicare card or cell phone is found on the premises. Worse, the victim appears to be someone who kept to himself; not one of the neighbors even knows his name. Gunn, however, knows enough about how to drop a clue here, a hint there, a diversion somewhere else to keep the reader guessing. As Burke and her team slog up one blind alley and down another, tension builds apace, all juxtaposed against her otherwise tranquil domestic life. [em]Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency. (Dec.) [/em]