BROKEN PLACES

By Tracy Clark

It’s always exciting to see a debut novel, and this was not only exciting to see, it was amazing to read. This first Chicago Mystery focuses on a former policewoman by the name of Cass Raines, and is being touted as the first of three.

Cass loves the Windy City but decided she could alleviate some of the stress in her life if she walked the path of a P.I. instead of her ultra-tense role as a cop. Her decision also came about because of the bullet she had to take when a colleague completely botched a confrontation with an armed suspect.

Affected badly, Cass resigned and is actually having a far easier life being a self-employed woman who, although she still searches for justice, only has to rely on herself to get the job done and done correctly. The rest of the hours in her day are filled with watching over friends and tenants in her apartment building in Hyde Park, and playing chess with Father Ray Heaton who is a truly supportive parental figure for Cass.

She cares for him so much that Cass doesn’t think twice when Father Ray asks her to help him find out who has been vandalizing his church. Seems like an easy one to solve, but unfortunately for Cass, she walks into the church only to find a murder victim in the confessional and the dead body of a known gangbanger close by.

Cass knows this area around Saint Brendan’s and is not quick to jump on board with the lead detective’s belief that this was simply a burglary gone wrong, so Cass sets out on a determined path to unearth the real killer and solve the crime herself.

The author, Tracy Clark, has done a great job with Cass. The woman is a spitball of fire, as my own grandmother used to say, and one character that readers will follow whether this turns out to be three books or twenty.