Review: Murder in Hell's Kitchen

Murder in Hell's Kitchen Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Lee Harris
Class/Genre: Mystery Woman Main Character Police Procedural
Series: Jane Bauer # 1
4/03, 304 pages

Detective Jane Bauer is pulled of what she believes to be the case of her career to work with a special unit tackling unsolved crimes. She is planning to leave the NYPD soon for a desk job with an insurance company.

Her new partners are Gordon Defino and Sean MacHovec. It is soon evident that MacHovec prefers to stay in and work the phones. Defino and Jane do the legwork. They were to re-investigate the death of Arlen Quill. Quill had been found stabbed to death in the entry of his apartment building.

When they begin investigating, they find that everyone has moved from the apartment building. Considering that it is a rent-controlled building, this alone is suspicious. Then they find out that there were other deaths that in and of themselves were not suspicious but when you put them all together, they were.

On top of all this, Jane is going through some changes in her life. Recently she split up with Hack. He's married and his daughter was getting suspicious. And she's moving into a new apartment. Then the letter arrives and complicates her life even more.

She ends up going to Omaha to try to find one of the former tenants who might have much needed information. From that trip, she is concerned that she was followed. The case takes on a different tempo. She ends up putting herself in danger in her attempts to solve it.

I really like Jane. She is a complex character but yet she is human. New York is always a great setting for a mystery with a detective for the protagonist.

The plot takes many twists and turns before everything is discovered. It is very well written.

I have always enjoyed Lee Harris' other series starring ex-nun Christine Bennett. The two series are very different and I think that is a good thing.

I highly recommend this new series and cannot wait for the next book to be published.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Dawn Dowdle

Book Review: Murder in Hell's Kitchen