Book Review: Details at 10

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Details at 10     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Ardella Garland
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural   Amateur Sleuth
Simon & Schuster, Sept.2000, $23.00, 288pp

TV reporter Georgia Barnett interviews a local eyewitness of a drive by killing. The ho hum murder would be another statistic in Chicago’s South Side gang war with same day media coverage and no follow-up except the witness Butter, a little girl fond of bread and butter sandwiches has been abducted.

A guilt racked Georgia realizes his on the scene reporting has jeopardized the life of the precocious preadolescent. To make amends, Georgia begins her own inquiries. However, her efforts lead to clashes with Detective Doug Eckart and her superiors at the station. Eckart and her employers want her to drop the case that is no longer a rating grabber. However, Georgia owes it to her self and especially Butter to rescue the little girl from the gang that kidnapped her.

DETAILS AT 10 is an interesting amateur sleuth-police procedural tale that highlights the helpless poverty of a depressed neighborhood. The story line works when Ardella Garland concentrates on the South Side and the problems haunting even the very young. The plot struggles when it focuses on the attraction between the journalist and the cop that tends to blur the more serious and tragic aspects of a superior novel.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner