If you’ve been wondering about my new background, it’s a street in New Orleans where Bouchercon was held last year. Soon, I’ll be leaving for Toronto for this year’s Bouchercon!

It’s always good to have an incentive to get back on a regular reading schedule! Today’s list is a review of Reed Farrel Coleman’s Where It Hurts. I’ve been known to read a police procedural or a hardboiled mystery once in a while so I wasn’t put off by Gus Murphy, a grieving  ex-cop, who’s lost his family. The formula works to make us feel his pain even though we don’t know for a long time how the instigating action, his son’s death, happened. The character is very likable and I enjoyed his friends from the sleazy hotel, The Paragon, where he now works.

His depiction of the Manhattan island setting was intriguing. Coleman obviously did his homework about the layout of the terrain and how the precincts are setup. Everything was going well until about two-thirds of the way through the book where I felt like I must have missed something. This is the point where I would have expected the logical links of the plot to fall in place. Instead, he tries out one plot ending after another. I lost count of how many times I thought the end was near. Instead, I found myself stumbling along with Coleman until we’re back to the doughnut shop. Did I say I didn’t like the ending? A very likeable lead character though, and Coleman has some obvious writing skills that could be enhanced by a later deadline. Not my pick for the Anthony.