Review: Incendiary Designs

Incendiary Designs Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Michael Allen Dymmoch
Class/Genre: Mystery Thriller Police Procedural
Series: Thinnes/Caleb # 3
October, 1998, HC, St. Martin's Press, 296 pgs., $22.95

Incendiary Designs is a complicated novel that skirts the edges of coincidence, but always draws away and resolves itself in logical, thoughtful ways. It's a tribute to the control and talent of author Dymmoch.

Chicago Psychiatrist Jack Caleb is jogging one hot dark night when he comes across a riotous scene and discovers that a small mob of crazies is intent on burning a car. With a shock, he realizes the car is a police squad and there is a semi-conscious cop still inside. Since these squads almost always carry two officers, where is the other? Caleb risks his own life and rescues the officer, thereby placing himself squarely in the middle of a complex case of murder, arson, greed connected to the charismatic membership of a small storefront religious group.

The murder of a cop sends shock waves and high determination through the entire ranks of the Chicago PD and detective John Thinnes is immediately assigned to handle the case. The book brings together two strong dynamic characters, the consulting psychiatrist Caleb and the detective. Theirs is an uneasy if complementary relationship in which each draws on the experience and skills of the other to solve the case. Throughout this gritty, fast-paced novel, the author has woven an enthralling sub- plot, the developing relationship between the psychiatrist and his new-found friend, Dr. Martin Morgan. Morgan is in the throes of a pending divorce and a difficult examination of his identity. The scenes of their gradually deepening friendship are among the most moving and sensitive one is likely to find in the genre. When Dr. Morgan is found to be linked to the people probably responsible for the destruction of the squad car and the initial murder, a whole new level of complexity is introduced.

The book takes readers inside the Chicago PD, through some of the city's meanest streets and explores several levels of Chicago's social structure. And always, in a complex city with a complicated plot, the clear, direct writing of the author, her sensitivity and her realism, makes this a fine novel with clear and logical conclusions. A fine effort.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: Incendiary Designs