A basement. A gun. And sordid politics. The ingredients to a perfect crime until Reno McCarthy, sexy, intelligent, sometimes bull-headed reporter, gets on the case. For him, a secret crime is not an unsolvable challenge. You just have to know the right questions to ask.
Doug M. Cummings, experienced cop and reporter as well as author of Deader By the Lake, the first Reno McCarthy novel, has written another enthralling piece, Every Secret Crime, in which McCarthy investigates a seemingly routine homicide in Falcon Ridge. But when evidence disappears, witnesses and suspects end up dead, McCarthy finds himself caught in a web of deeply rooted power and greed.
Last year I made a list of all the possible reasons you would want to kill a person. There were only eight, one of them being “passion.” But whether through “passion” or mere “convenience,” a good murder mystery is hard to pass up — Cummings’ novel, even more so.
Unlike many novels today, I was hooked by the first page of Every Secret Crime. Cummings begins his novel with a horrific scene that I couldn’t get out of my head. I spent the entire novel trying to figure out how it fit with the rest of the story. And just when I thought I had it all put together, I was smacking myself in the head for having it all wrong.
But while the story has surprises around every corner, I love the mystery-novel detective that Cummings has created in Reno McCarthy — someone with just the right connections, self-confidence, and emotional hang-ups to get the job done. We could debate all day about whether the character or the plot is more important, but while Cummings weaves believable clues and evidence to drag us through this corrupt small town, without McCarthy the book wouldn’t be the same.
If you enjoy a good mystery novel, Every Secret Crime is one you don’t want to miss. With Cummings’ writing ability and real-life knowledge, his books stand alone in today’s mystery genre.
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