Downfall is a fast-paced novel set in New York City in the 1980s. It is something of a mashup of a police procedural and character-driven fiction and includes the points of view of the two detectives, a physician, Richard Shepard, whose father is murdered, and the murderer himself. Two murders occur close together and seem unrelated except that one of the men killed is Richard’s Doppelgänger. Because of this, Richard believes he is being targeted, though who would want to kill him and his father? The premise is fascinating.
As a police procedural, it reads a bit odd. The detectives spend little time actually “detecting.” The point of view of the murderer seems somewhat superfluous as it doesn’t provide but a bit or two of information that isn’t duplicated elsewhere.
That said, the prose is clever and tight. There are some great one-liners such as: “the body heat in the place could bake a loaf of bread,” “his beer gut’s big enough to have its own zip code,” and “the marriage has soured like a carton of milk that’s past its sell-by date.” The points of view change fairly frequently with no indication of whose POV the reader is in, and the voices of the individual characters aren’t sufficiently different that the reader knows instantly. Overall an interesting read but not a great one.
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Downfall (Oceanview Publishing, April 4, 2023) is available through:
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