Red Hook takes the police procedural style and switches the genre from focusing on large events and monumental cases to the mystery of one of the little guys so often forgotten. I commend Cohen for trying to take an area so well-trodden and bring its focus down to a level so often ignored. This book had the potential of opening up a new front for the detective mystery alongside the chase for serial killers and psychopaths. Unfortunately it doesn’t live up to that potential. While the crime isn’t something we see in most mystery novels, strangely because it is so mundane as to be ignored, the characters we have seen thousands of times. A hard bitten detective, disillusioned by the job but drawn to one case everyone else ignores and estranged from his family. It’s like Lightner and his supporting case were pulled out of some detective fiction mold. To be… Read more »
