Review: Edge

I should have plowed through Edge by Tracy Clark. I mean, I sort of kind of did? I read it in two sittings. It's just those two sittings were literal weeks apart. Yes, for one of my favorite suspense writers. For a book I broke a nail one-clicking. Y'all 2025 can just suck it. I know part of the problem is that my brain is broken, but I truly need to find the joy in reading again or else 2026 is going to see y'all talking me down off a ledge.

Anyway, this book. It's the fourth book in Clark's Detective Harriet Foster series, following the trials and tribulations of a Black, female, Chicago homicide detective.  Clark has written these books pretty heavy on the series stuff, so even though we're only four books in, they haven't been standing alone well. In fact, when a plot arch that carried over the first three books wrapped up in Book 3 I kind of thought this one would serve as a fresh start. Well, yes and no. Harriet has at least found a good therapist now, so maybe there's hope she's turning a corner on some of her guilt.

The book opens with a bang. It was highly suggested that Harriet take some time off due to events in the previous book, and that's what she's begrudgingly doing. She's taking a lonely, solitary walk in the Chicago rain early one morning when she sees something odd - two people lying out in the open (in the rain!) in a local skate park. Her cop instincts kick in and what she discovers are two young people with symptoms of a drug overdose. It's too late for the young man, he's dead. However the young woman is still alive, but just barely. Harriet's quick thinking saves her life, and it turns out she's the niece of one of the cops that Harriet works with. 

Matt is loaded for bear but it's an overdose, not a homicide and the team has handed off the details to the cops who responded to Harriet's 911 call. Then, another call comes in. A man burning both ends to make ends meet, to support his young family, becomes worried when his wife doesn't answer the phone. He leaves work only to find his young wife, who finally seemed to be pulling out of her postpartum depression, lying in bed, dead. From an overdose of the same drug that killed the two college kids Harriet found on the morning of her lonely walk in the rain. 

As more overdoses pile up time is running out for them to get a handle on what is killing these people. Interspersed between the pages of Harriet and the team running down answers is the tale of a turf war within a gang family. A dead patriarch, a ruthless daughter now running the show, and her ambitious, impulsive and reckless niece who has already lit a fuse. 

A dangerous street drug and a criminal family tearing itself at the seams makes for a compelling story and as always Clark does a great job with the Chicago setting. I also was tickled beyond measure that Clark's other creation, former cop turned PI Cassandra "Cass" Raines shows up in this story. Although, she's more of a cocky bitch here than I ever remembered her being in her own books. Still, I was glad to see her again, although I can't help but think this likely means her series is now officially dead unless Clark decides to meld the two together or can get Amazon to pick it up now that it seems like Kensington has moved on. 

While I enjoyed the plot, I'll admit the characters frustrated me more in this entry - especially with the way they handled Matt's niece who survives her OD. Cops closing ranks and treating "one of their own" with kid gloves? Highly believable. Did it still frustrate the hell out of me that Harriet wasn't rattling cages harder, louder, faster and sooner? Yes. The urgency to the investigation seemed to ebb and flow in this book and I get that police work is 99% tedium, but it sure seemed to take the characters a long time to circle around to talking to some of their "persons of interest" in a timely manner.  Which, come to think of it, is how we get Cass to show up in this book. That's a woman who waits for no one. 

The writing did get a bit overwrought at times, but given her life experiences Harriet is kind of an overwrought person not dealing with her baggage - so really, what am I saying? I don't even know anymore. Again, good plot, I'm still enjoying the characters, but this one isn't quite as good as the first couple of books for me.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Echo

Tracy Clark is one of my favorite mystery/suspense authors working today and Echo is the third book in her Harriet Foster series. This is also the first book in the series that I don't think stands alone all that well, since there's a secondary plot thread that was first introduced in the previous book, Fall.

Detective Harriet Foster and her colleagues in the Chicago PD just recently wrapped up the case of the murdered aldermen (see previous book) when they catch another hot one. They're called to Hardwicke House, a fraternity-like house at Belverton College and home to the exclusive "Minotaur Society." Their victim is Brice Collier, a legacy and the son of Sebastian Collier, a billionaire and major benefactor of the school (more than one building is named after him). 

The whole thing stinks from the jump. There was a party at Hardwicke House, a semi-regular occurrence that the university turned the other way on because of course they would. Brice was found dead in a field, often used as a campus shortcut, by two girls who seem to be hiding something, and it soon becomes apparent that Brice's death looks suspiciously like a hazing incident that happened 30 years ago at Hardwicke House - and who was at the center of that incident? Sebastian Collier - a man who is in Geneva and not rushing back to Chicago, never mind his only child is dead. Instead he's got a hired ghoul by the name of Lange (just Lange) lurking around.

On top of all this Harriet has her own troubles, namely a shadowy figure blackmailing her with threats against her former partner's widower and children. Harriet is a good cop, so naturally goes to Internal Affairs, only to get word through her chief that IA is sweeping the whole thing under the rug. That doesn't sit right with Harriet, not only because Glynnis's name is being dragged through the mud, but also because this bad guy isn't going away and his threats are escalating. Who is he, what does he want and what is his end game?

With this book Clark explores the idea of justice by any means necessary and vengeance. Raw, cold vengeance given the perfect backdrop of a Chicago winter. If nothing else Clark knows Chicago and she continues to nail the winter weather. The plot follows the old adage of the sins of the father being visited upon the son, and the thriller tagline on this series is intentional. There are a few instances where the reader is privy to information before Harriet and her colleagues are clued in.

The Collier homicide, the motive and the fallout are all compelling. Clark has given readers rich, privileged asshole victims in the last two books, partly because I think she's reading the room but also it allows her to spin interesting webs.  The Collier storyline is pretty straight-forward, until it isn't, and the author throws in some twists and thrills for the final chapters.

The shadowy blackmailer plot is a little thinner. To say more about how it connects to the overall story would be a spoiler, and from that standpoint I understand what the author was shooting for, but it still read like she didn't have enough of either plot to write two books so she smooshed them both in here. It gave the book a disjointed feel at times, and while I do think the author tips her hand on the resolution to this thread, she doesn't spell it out in minute detail. I won't go so far as to say it's "unanswered" because I know what I think happens to the bad guy - but mileage may vary.

I didn't like this one quite as much as other books by Clark but it was still an entertaining read and I happily flipped the pages. Also, while I'm desperate for her to get back to her Cassandra Raines series, looks like Amazon is on board for more Harriet.  There's already a placeholder for a Book 4, due out in December 2025.

Final Grade = B

Review: Fall

Fall by Tracy Clark is the second book in her Detective Harriet Foster series for Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint. I'm still a bit put-out that Clark's Cass Raines private detective series for Kensington seems to be put on ice, but the Foster books have been an enjoyable consolation prize and once I found the spoons to start reading I zipped through this in 24 hours.

Marin Shaw is getting out of prison after 3 long years. A former city alderman she was locked up for corruption, managed to get sober behind bars (she's an alcoholic) and she didn't take anyone down with her - which she most certainly could have. Marin knows where some bodies are buried.  Needless to say her getting out is big news - to the press who smell blood in the water and to her fellow aldermen who are worried she's out for her pound of flesh. However all Marin really cares about is repairing her relationship with her young daughter and divorcing her sack of crap husband.  Then, well, the bodies start dropping. 

The first alderman is found shot to death in a parking garage. The second one, stabbed to death in his office. Found with the bodies are baggies filled with 30 dimes. Harriet Foster has caught the case and while both dead aldermen were connected to Marin it feels too neat. There's also the minor problem that they don't have a ton of hard evidence to make an arrest stick to her.  The powers that be are at full froth and the pressure is on to make an arrest - but are the dead bodies tied to Marin's case or is it something else entirely the police aren't seeing?

Half the joy in Clark's books is that they're set in the city of Chicago, and she writes about the city well. However, rather unbelievably, this is the first of her books to really mine political corruption - which is about as Chicago as Irish cops, Chicago dogs, and Wrigley Field. Needless to say, I fell into the plot pretty hard and there was just enough political sleaze on the page to keep me invested. Normally I'm not a huge fan of politics in my entertainment because, hello, real life - but when political bodies are dropping, well I'm only human after all.

The mystery hums along well and while Marin is the obvious suspect the author takes the narrative on a few twists.  That said, I did have a pretty good idea from the jump who our murderer was and it spins out to a climactic, albeit slightly unhinged, finish.

What didn't work so well for me was the introduction to a secondary plot thread planted, I suspect, for the third book in the series. Harriet's former partner committed suicide, leaving behind a husband and two sons. Harriet and her partner's widower start receiving threats, and whoever it is wants to leverage Harriet to do his dirty bidding (presumably fix cases, make evidence disappear etc.) in exchange for the safety of Glynnis' children. It doesn't go much of anywhere in this book and honestly takes focus away from the main storyline.  Also, if I'm being honest, I'm still butt-hurt that this tactic was employed in the fourth book of the Cass Raines series and a fifth book has yet to appear - and likely won't for a long while (if ever).  The Raines series was published by Kensington, and Clark now seems wrapped up in this Foster series for Amazon.  So yes, I have baggage.  On the bright side, as of the time of this posting, Amazon does have a listing for the third book in this series, slated for next December. Hopefully that release date will stick.

I didn't like this one as much as the first book in the series, but I still enjoyed it. The story was strong, the sense of place was dynamite, and Harriet is capable, smart, with underlying vulnerabilities that make her interesting.  I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Hide

I discovered Tracy Clark's Cassandra Raines series in late 2020, when I was in serious need of 1) comfort 2) nostalgia and 3) escape. And while I know a lot of people like to read frothy Regency romances to get that fix, I go for competent female private investigators.  I am trash for competent female private investigators.  What can I say? I read a lot of Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller during my impressionable teen years.  So I'll admit it was with mixed feelings when I first heard about Hide "A Detective Harriet Foster Thriller."  Cass has been put on ice, and just as a secondary character was going to get embroiled into "something" that seemed to set up a fifth book.  Sigh.  Well, hopefully Cass will be back (soon, please soon!), but in the meantime spending time with Harriet is a decent consolation prize.

Chicago homicide detective Harriet Foster is back on the job, at a new precinct, after an administrative leave.  Her longtime partner, Glynnis, drove to work one day, stayed sitting in her parked car, took out her department issued gun, and shot herself. Harriet didn't see it coming. Had no idea her partner was struggling - her partner who was happily married and had two children at home. Compounding this is it's not the only tragedy Harriet is still reeling from. Her son was shot and killed in a robbery attempt, which led to the disintegration of her marriage and a now distant relationship with her family (her choice, they've been reaching out and trying to keep lines of communication open).  Getting back on the job, stepping into a new precinct, and getting partnered with an "old school cop" on the first day when her new boss is looking at her like she expects her unravel at any moment?  It's a lot.  And then the first body shows up.

A pretty, young, white college student is found under a pile of leaves, dumped, near Chicago's Riverwalk. She has been, quite literally, butchered, with red lipstick markings around her wrists and ankles.  Nearby? A young black man, passed out, with blood on his clothing. Harriet's "old school cop" partner jumps to the immediate conclusion but Harriet is immediately suspicious. It's a spot of blood. The woman was butchered.  One thing is for certain though, they need to get a line on things fast because the victim's last known whereabouts were at a defund the police rally.  The optics for the department are not great - and then a body of another dead white woman turns up. Needless to say, the heat turns up on the case exponentially. 

Clark is a Black woman and both of her series feature Black, female protagonists who are current or former cops, with all the crap and baggage that entails. It's how Clark writes about these challenges that's so riveting - you see the struggles and triumphs through Harriet's eyes. The ground she gains, the bullshit she has to circumvent or wade straight through - and at the start of this story Harriet is worn down. The loss in her life hangs off her like a shroud. She's grieving and now she's stuck with a new partner that just further exhausts her the moment she meets him. But she has a job to do - which means if he's not a help, he's a hindrance, and she will walk right through him if she must.  Clark never, ever monologues. She doesn't preach. Everything in this story exists because it's what the characters think, what the characters feel. How does Clark feel about the past, present and future of policing?  I couldn't begin to tell you - but I can tell you how her characters feel.  Which, to be frank, is what I want in fiction. I want to lose myself in the lives of fictional characters.

While this book is half police procedural, it's also half thriller.  Yep, buckle up kiddies, you get alternating points of view broken up by chapters.  We meet a troubled young man, Bodie Morgan, newly sprung from a psychiatric hospital after he took a plea deal for stalking a couple of women.  As the reader it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he's somehow tied to the murder victims, but how? In what way?  I'll admit that I was so entranced by Harriet, and her working the case, that the early Morgan chapters were tedious for me (Ugh, him again? When can I get back to Harriet?!), but once Clark starts tying the threads together the whole thing really started to cook for me.

I liked this story a lot and it was a quick, fast read - but like an idiot I now have to wait until December for book 2!  But it also means Tracy Clark is one of the few autobuy authors I have whose backlist I am totally caught up on.  That's saying something.

Final Grade = B+

Review: Runner

I discovered Tracy Clark's Cass Raines series as 2020 gave way to 2021 and was immediately hooked on the smart, savvy, competent as hell, former Chicago police officer turned private eye. I caught the series early, which means after plowing through the first three books I had to wait for book four, Runner, like a regular chump.  Well, it's finally here and it was a riveting read.

It's shortly after Thanksgiving and the Chicago weather has turned bitter cold. Winter is here and Cass is paying the price for most of this book. You can tell Clark knows Chicago. She nails the weather.  Anyway, Cass is seeking shelter in that most Chicago of places - a White Castle. Certainly the sliders are a draw but she's also there to meet a perspective client.  Leesa Evans is a recovering addict looking for her missing daughter, Ramona.  Ramona is 15-years-old and in the foster care system. By all accounts she was in a good situation, living with a former actress, Deloris Poole, who was giving the girl structure, and slowly getting her to open up.  And then one day, poof! Ramona runs away. No word, no warning, in the dead of winter.  The cops are on the case, but Leesa doesn't trust the cops. She wants someone working for her - which is where Cass comes in.  Cass hears the words "15-year-old girl" and knows she'll be taking on Leesa as a client.

What follows is Cass covering a lot of ground and backtracking through territory that the police have already covered (to start at any rate). But it's definitely odd. For one thing the lead detective on the case is downright cooperative and is fine with a PI sniffing around. Given the previous three books in this series, Cass finds that odd (she's used to rubbing Chicago's finest in all the wrong ways, never mind she used to be one of them).  Ramona has zero friends and didn't seem to confide in a single person, anywhere and she's not part of the city's social services system. Ramona is in foster care through a private organization. Cass talks to the obvious players, hits a lot of dead ends, but eventually hits pay dirt when she uncovers a lead through Ramona's part-time job.  Unfortunately that lead brings up more questions than answers.

Clark rounds out her story by populating it with the many "found family" secondary characters that have been introduced over the course of the series.  The police detective she's been dating wants her to finally meet his teenage daughter (it goes about as well as you'd expect), the childhood friends, a nun who helps her with the case by introducing her to some street kids, the ex-con turned short order cook who is hiding something (plot bunny for Book #5!) and the local diner where Cass regularly eats has a new waitress who has her out-of-sorts (Cass doesn't do well with change).  

The mystery is engaging and solid and Cass continues to be a dynamite character, smart and savvy. Series, at a certain point, can be tricky to write - needing to engage both newcomers and fans alike, but this book stands alone very well, and won't lose newcomers despite being book #4. Clark also avoids info-dumping that would cause an already-fan's eyes to glaze over.

Clark has won an award named after Sue Grafton, and for readers who loved the "feel" of the Kinsey Millhone series, you need to drop your life and try this series.  The recurring cast of secondary characters, the strong neighborhood feel of the setting, the competent as hell female PI - this series hits all those beats.  Clark is definitely my favorite author discovery in recent memory and I am ready for another book tomorrow.  Instead, like a chump, I patiently wait.

Final Grade = B+

Series Review: Cass Raines, Private Eye

If there's one common thread I've seen among recent reader chatter is that between 2020 and the Pandemic many of us have turned to comfort reads. Comfort reads, for me, often carry a heavy dose of nostalgia with them - which helps explain why I am trash for female private detectives. I got hooked on reading through mysteries and spent many trips to the public library as a kid reading Nancy Drew and graduating to Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller.  So when I needed some female private eyes in my reading, @JayneChanger stepped in to recommend Broken Places by Tracy Clark - the first book in an #ownvoices series about a Black female Chicago PD detective who goes private.  I have since read all three books in the series (to date), with the fourth due out in late June 2021.  It's a low gore mystery series, with a light romance that comes into play, so I think romance readers may dig it - assuming of course you can get past the series set-up. 

Broken Places opens with Cass still on the Chicago PD. Cassandra "Cass" Raines and her partner are in pursuit of a suspect, a gang member, that leads to a Chicago rooftop.  The young Black man has a gun.  Cass is this close to diffusing the situation, talking the kid down, when "back-up" shows up. An incompetent bungler who is juiced in thanks to departmental and family connections. Next thing you know, Cass takes a bullet and the kid is dead.  This deeply affects Cass and the ensuing internal investigation goes just about the way you'd expect.  Cass turns in her badge and goes private.

Fast forward, and Cass gets a visit from Father Ray "Pop" Heaton. After her mother died of cancer when Cass was young, her father took off - leaving her in the care of her loving grandparents.  Pop stepped in to fill the void left by her father.  There's a been a recent spat of vandalism at the church and while Pop keeps brushing it off as no big deal - he still asks Cass to snoop around.  Before she can though Father Ray is found dead in the chapel - and who should be the lead detective on the case?  Yeah, the juiced-in incompetent bungler.  Pop's church is in a rough neighborhood so he's already half closed the case as a junkie robbery attempt gone wrong.  Yeah, this doesn't fly for Cass - Pop was family.  She's on the case, pissing off half the Chicago PD along the way.

This was a good, solid start to the series.  Cass was a little slow on the uptake during the final chapters, but a minor quibble.  I loved the Chicago setting and the cast of secondary characters surrounding Cass - including tenants in the apartment building she inherited from her grandparents, her BFF (a nun from a raucous Irish Catholic family), her former partner, and a childhood BFF now out of prison and determined to stay out.  Final Grade = B+

Borrowed Time has so far been the weak link in the series, but it's still an entertaining read. Business has been slow, and Cass has been paying the bills by delivering summonses to all manner of low-life. She's ready for a challenge.  She just didn't expect it from Jung Byson, her local diner's delivery guy who is a slacker / hippie type who likes to party.  His friend, Tim Ayers, a wealthy son of a prominent Chicago family, was found dead floating in Lake Michigan.  Police are calling it a suicide. Jung thinks Tim was murdered.  Jung is flaky as hell, but he's got money for her retainer, so Cass starts digging.  She immediately finds out her new client has not been forthcoming.  Namely, Tim was terminally ill.  Suicide seems more than plausible.  But one thing bothers Cass - namely there were no finger prints found on the yacht where Tim was living and from whence he jumped.  That smells hinky AF. Naturally the more Cass starts poking the more she runs afoul of the Ayers family and the Chicago PD. 

The story hinges on a pretty flimsy premise - namely that a private investigator would take on a case, and continue working on it, when the client "conveniently" keeps omitting information and lying by omission.  I had a hard time reconciling this, even though the mystery behind Tim's death is a good one.  But I enjoyed the time spent with Cass, revisiting Chicago and the menagerie of secondary characters.  Final Grade = B- 

What You Don't See might be my favorite, mostly because the case Cass is working on is once again personal.  Cass's former partner, Ben Mickerson, has been moonlighting as security for Vonda Allen - a magazine editor and local celebrity who is about to get her own syndicated talk show.  Someone has been sending her anonymous poison pen letters. Ben convinces Vonda's team to hire on Cass for an upcoming book tour since nobody (including Vonda) wants the cops involved.  Cass really doesn't want the job. Vonda has a reputation for being a mega-bitch diva (boy howdy!) but this is Ben asking.  It soon becomes apparent just how real the threat is though when Ben is stabbed while on duty.  Vonda's throwing up road-blocks and once again Cass gets on the wrong side of the Chicago PD - but Ben is family.  Cass tenaciously starts digging and unearths a whole mess of ugly skeletons in Vonda's closet.

Like Borrowed Time, Cass should have stayed far away from this case - but it's Ben asking, so it's an explanation that works for me.  Also, Vonda Allen is a piece of work yo!  Parts of the mystery are fairly obvious (right around the time Ben gets stabbed), but Clark writes it high-octane and it makes for a great finish.  Vonda's orbit is poisonous, with victims dropping left and right.  I finished this one and immediately went looking to see how long I was going to have to wait for Book 4.  Final Grade = B+

There's a number of dead bodies that have dropped so far in this series, but none of it graphically depicted (OK, so there's one dismembered body, but there aren't multiple gleeful pages written about a serial killer's work, for example).  But the event that leads to Cass quitting Chicago PD, is tough to read - especially in light of recent events. It's how Clark has blended the Chicago PD and the characters still in uniform that I've found compelling.  Also, the larger cast surrounding Cass is dynamite.  It's very Found Family.  Cass even gets a romance, a police detective who first appears in Book 1, manages to open the door a crack in Book 2, and by Book 3 they're "an item."  A new, burgeoning item, but an item nonetheless.

If you're a mystery fan, this is a series worth a look.  While Clark has won some awards for this series, it's a series still in it's infancy (only 3 books so far!).  Here's hoping her audience continues to grow because I'm hooked now and need more.