Book Review: Mission Flats

Reviewed By: Jennifer Jordan

Mission Flats     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
William Landay
Class/Genre:   Mystery
September 2003; Delacorte Press; $23.95; 384 pages

Mission Flats is an insightful, human and unforgettable debut novel. The author William Landay, a former D.A., is well versed in police procedure and is a powerful teller of dark tales. An amazing grip on the readers mind is instilled from the first page and holds tight throughout this remarkable book. It has a seasoned feel, a tight plot and a protagonist that escapes the cop-driven fiction formula.

Nothing ever happens in the sleepy backwater town of Versailles, Maine. At least, that's what everybody thought. When Police Chief Ben Truman finds a body in the tourist cabins by Lake Mattaquisett, he is plunged headlong into a murder investigation that leads all the way into Boston Proper. The body belongs to a now former prosecutor who was on the verge of prosecuting a series of gang related murders. The M.O. of the killing resembles that of bodies piling up around a suspect doggedly pursued by an intense Boston homicide detective Edmund Kurth. Truman would be happy to leave the whole investigation to Kurth, but feels a nagging responsibility to place himself in the middle of an investigation that no one else wants him to join. He is a trout swimming upstream with only his instincts to guide him. As the case opens up, layer by painstaking layer, secrets are revealed and a Pandoras box is opened that threatens all that Ben holds to be true. By the time he realizes how much danger he's in, it is much too late for him to go back.

Landay's resonant prose and the deeply empathic nature of his lead character are like a siren song that leads to the unknown. The backstory doesn't drag the story down; it enlivens it and makes it richer. The action scenes are pounded out so quickly; the pulse actually quickens as the pages turn. With an ending that delivers all that is promised, Mission Flats should be on every readers must read list.

Jennifer Jordan

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Jennifer Jordan