Vertical Coffin: A Shane Scully Novel

Shane and Alexa Scully are back in action again, this time staying pretty much on home turf but up against the toughest assignment either of them have ever had. Friend and fellow officer from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Emo Rojas is brutally gunned down routinely serving a warrant. However, the Sheriff's department took the warrant from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms federal unit. Emo is dead in the "Vertical Coffin", police slang for a doorway, and chaos runs rampant as Shane arrives on the scene. What follows is a burned out husk of a house that once contained a psychopath named Vincent Smiley, who all departments believed was a "suicide by cop" incident where he met the onslaught of officers on the scene with AK-47 gunfire and Kevlar body protection. Now the Sheriff's department and the Federal ATF department are at war, arguing over who was to blame for Emo's death in the Vertical Coffin. Shane finds himself in the middle of this cop war as he is assigned to investigate the incident as a neutral LAPD officer. In this latest installment of Shane Scully adventures, get ready for the ride of your life. Not everything is what it seems to be, for Shane's finds bizarre clues buried in the ashes of Vincent Smiley's home, and as he seeks to unravel the mysteries, more and more officers begin to die in Vertical Coffins, leaving the two agencies frothing at the mouth for each other's blood. There are more twists and deeper characterization in this novel, really fleshing out Shane and Alexa, allowing us to see different angles of the man inside. Also noteworthy, this is the first Scully novel that Stephen J. Cannell has written in `First Person' format, giving a more personal feel to Shane's inner workings and emotions, and jacking up the action another notch. You will meet two great characters in this book, Josephine Brickhouse and Royal Mortenson, who Cannell did a great job in bringing to life, each of which will touch Shane's life in a profound way. This is my favorite Shane Scully novel to date, and I am looking forward to more Scully novels to come, although I deeply enjoy the novels Cannell does outside of his Shane Scully world also. Just keep writing, Mr. Cannell. Enjoy!

You may never look at a doorway in the same manner after reading this novel. The title refers to the fact that SWAT teams refer to doors in this manner as they are most vulnerable to being shot when they are in one. As this story starts to unwind, a LA Sheriff's Deputy is gunned down as he tries to serve a warrant on a person suspected of harboring automatic weapons. The shooter then barracades himself inside his house and using an AK-47 takes on the Sheriff Department's SWAT along with an ATF SWAT team that arrives on the scene. During a ferocious gun battle, the ATF fires hot gas grenades into the house and it catches on fire which quickly turns into an inferno and then a bunch of massive explosions as weapons and other material in the garage are touched off. End of gun fight.LAPD officer Shane Scully finds himself in the middle of the matter as he has heard the transmissions about the officer being shot and believes it is a friend of his. He was right. Dead right.After the ashes cool the debris yeilds what is left of a burned body in an upstairs bathtub. DNA evidence makes it a perfect match with the shooter.With that aspect of the case closed, recriminations start to fly about what ATF was doing on the scene and why they fired hot gas into the house, endangering the entire neighborhood. It is then discovered that ATF had asked the Sherrif's Department to serve the warrant and didn't advise of the extent of their suspicions about the type of person that was being served.Things go from bad to badder after the funeral of the deputy when the two SWAT teams end up in the same bar with predictable results.Shortly thereafter, one of the ATF officers is shot by a sniper.The evidence begins to pile up indicating a SWAT Unit War and Scully as neither ATF or SD is asked to investigate the matter by the Mayor and get to the bottom of who is doing what.The answer will astound you and I'm not going to give it away. What I will tell you is that Cannell has once again written a real page turner that lacks nothing in the way of action, intrigue and human relationships. (He could stand to brush up on his bridge game terminology, but that's a small matter that I just couldn't resist mentioning.)I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Vertical Coffin is Stephen J. Cannell's best novel so far. We once again get to join Shane Scully in a far reaching and suspenseful investigation. The book demonstrates Cannell's traditional attention to details and riveting plot and well as improved character development. This one is a real page turner. Once I started, I could not put it down and read it cover to cover in a single sitting. Don't miss it.

Stephen J. Cannell continues to crank out story after story and never seems to tire or become stale. In his latest Shane Scully story two law enforcement agencies apparently declare war on each other. The LAPD loses a man while serving an all but unimportant warrent to Vincent Smiley, a cop wanna-be with a violent temper. Only later does it become apparent that the ATF knew that Smiley was likely to become violent and likely had a stash of weapons at his disposal. Later, officers and agents from both agencies are found dead. Shane Scully and his wife Alexa battle to get to the bottom of the case and save other lives that might be lost in a turf war.Fast paced with characters that leap off the page at you, Vertical Coffin is a worthwhile read by an author that has more than proved himself. You won't regret the time you spend reading this book.