Another flaw - which may be as much reviewer sensitivity as author imperfection - is the political views of two of the main protagonists, Forbes and Kincaid. Forbes, one of the detectives who was instrumental in the convictions of two accused killers scheduled for execution, expresses doubt about the death penalty as a punishment as the execution date nears. While certainly law enforcement officers aren't always for the death penalty, in Forbes’ case the sentiment is not well integrated into his character - there’s no real sense of what struggle he's going through that would lead to his views. With Kincaid, the problem is less pronounced, feeling as if the author is dropping in her own political potshots with Kincaid as a conduit. An example, on page 278, occurs as Kincaid is finishing a midday run, noting that she "finished it in twenty-two minutes. Not quite as fast as our current president, but I work a lot harder at my day job." Not a deal-breaker, but again, the kind of comments that don’t ring fully true with the rest of the character.
All in all, the book was worth my time, and I liked both the characters and the plotting well enough to want to read the next installment. But I also came away with the feeling that it would have come out first in paperback, not hardback, if Burke's father weren't famous crime fiction writer James Lee Burke.
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