Dead Room by Chris Mooney Marvellous McCormick

This CSI Darby McCormick’s third outing, the first two being The Missing and Secret Friend. I am thrilled to make her acquaintance as I think she is a marvellous protagonist and one of the best female role models I’ve met in fiction today.

Darby McCormick is tough, gritty, uncomplaining, extremely smart and very good at what she does. In her world it is a case of “like father, like daughter” as she followed her father’s footsteps to be an upholder of the law.

At the beginning of the book, she is the last woman left in SWAT training and her male colleagues have dwindled to just a handful. While she is finishing her last practical exam, a woman and her son are being tortured and killed. When Darby leaves the training ground, she gets the call to attend the crime scene.

Once at the crime scene, it turns out that the boy isn’t dead, it appears that someone shot their way into the house to save him. Now Darby has a wild card to wonder about as she tries to track down the killers.

This story will dredge up old skeletons for the Boston Police Department as well as the FBI and Darby’s favourite lab partner Cooper ‘Coop’ Jackson. Bad men thought long dead will come back to life and threaten everything that Darby cares about. It will bring her face to face with her father’s and Coop’s past and it won’t be pretty.

Besides loving this book from the very first sentence, I fell in love with the protagonists. Especially McCormick the Irish Colleen cop who is almost the Dirty Harriet of her world. When you meet this incredible cop, you’ll wish all police were this capable.

Mooney writes a mean story. It is crisp, succinct, fast paced and hard to put down. While I didn’t read this in a single sitting, I came damned close. As I read it on the ibook reader, I didn’t have the problem of not turning the pages quick enough, but it was close. This mystery/cop/thriller has introduced me to a new hero and a new writer; one which will be taking a spot in my new stable of ebook writers.

This was a real corker of a read and it earns a full 5 out of 5 stars for me, for having a fantastically twisting plot, high octane action and a backstory that will make you shudder at the way a man can “rule” a township.

An instant classic, this is available from booksellers and is on the Kindle and iBooks.

Author: Mike's Film Talk

Former Actor, Former Writer, Former Journalist, USAF Veteran, http://MikesFilmTalk.com Former Member Nevada Film Critics Society View all posts by Mike's Film Talk