Death Wore White-Jim Kelly

Death Wore White
Jim Kelly
Minotaur, Jun 9 2009, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312570811

In Norfolk, partners Detective Inspector Peter Shaw and Detective Sergeant George Valentine find a corpse on an inflatable raft on a beach. However, the pair cannot do much as a blizzard has closed many roads. A detour fails due to a downed tree causing an accident involving eight vehicles.

The first driver Harvey Ellis is dead with a screwdriver buried into his eye. Whoever killed Harvey escaped leaving no footprints in the snow unless the driver of the second car did it; but he died at the scene from an apparent heart attack. More corpses are found and no witness interviewed by the cops seems to be forthright with the truth. While the pair investigate that case, Peter also opens up the cold case Tessier inquiry that destroyed his later father’s reputation as a cop and took down his partner George too.

Loaded with twists that make San Francisco’s Lombard Street appear to be a straight line, DEATH WORE WHITE is a tremendous police procedural that will keep readers up late wondering what next and whodunit. The story line is fast-paced from the discovery of the first corpse and never slows down until several more bodies accumulate. Kim Kelly provides one of the year’s best mysteries and hopefully brings back his dynamic police duo.

Harriet Klausner