Alone with the Dead

A serial killer has raped and murdered women in Manhattan. Then come similar cases in Brooklyn. A police task force has been formed to get the killer. In charge of the task force is a blustery, unqualified detective who got the position thru blackmail. He see's this case as his career road up. Detective Joe Keough has had a tough time in the department. He seems prone to confrontations and not being a team player. He has noticed things that are strikingly different about the Manhattan and Brooklyn cases. He feels that the Brooklyn cases are the work of a kopykat. He expresses his concerns and is ignored. Due to fine basic police work and some timely coincidences who gets both killers. This is a very fast paced page turner. The only reason I give it four stars instead of five is that it seems to be Keough gets somewhat unbelievable at times. Particularly during his meeting with the police commissioner.

Alone with the Dead is a police procedural that follows all the rules. We have a working class detective named Joe who is ruled by a moral compass that few people in his department have. When Joe Keough finds the body of a young high school student, brutally raped with a rose inserted inside of her, he has a feeling that the death was committed by a copycat of a notorious serial killer named "The Lover." Others within the department, however, do not share his theory and are quick to lump the killing with the others. This, however, does not sit well with the actual serial killer, who goes out of his way to absolve himself from the blame. Joe, goes against his superiors, The Lover Task Force, and the copycat killer himself, to reveal to the public that there are in fact two serial killers. But when a friend of Joe's is brutally stabbed to death in his own home, the finger points to a boss within the NYPD. It is then that Joe realizes that he has made enemies both within the department AND outside in the mean streets of New York. The interesting part of the story is when one of Keough's few supporters in his investigation is The Lover himself! If you are a fan of police procedurals, this is a good one. It has a solid (but thinly veiled) mystery, very appealing characters, and a pacing that keeps you reading from the prologue to the epilogue. I did think the characters were quite clche, but it only added to the realism of the voice that Randisi creates. I previously knew Randisi by the anthologies that he put together, finding his tastes in the crime/noir literature to be quite phenomenal, however, I was impressed by his writing style. I thought the story was very realistic. It is something that I could actually see happening and could make a very good film (or at least a made for TV movie). Being a fan and writer of the mystery/crime genre myself, I love a good story and this one was pretty good.

I'm not much of a reviewer, but I've read all of Randisi's Joe Keough books. The hero, the villans and the mysteries are all first class reading enjoyment.

If you like Cornwell, Patterson or Robb, you will like this book. I could not put it down. Quick read with several twists in who did what to whom.

I found this book quite by accident at a local book store. I thoroughly enjoyed the non-stop suspense & the characters came alive during the story telling. You feel as though you "are there." I am now in the process of reading his newest novel, "In the Shadow of the Arch," and anticipating the next in the series. I just hope Mr. Randisi will continue to write future novels of his character Detective Joe Keough. He definately made me a faithful reader of this series. I am a long time reader of mysteries, thrillers, and especially detective police novels.