Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Two young people are lying on the ground of a skate park.  It’s cold and it’s raining, so Chicago Police Detective Harriet Foster realizes there’s something really wrong.  Going closer, she sees the blood drying on the young man’s face and knows that he’s dead.  The young woman, however, is alive but unresponsive.

Next to the pair are a couple of beer bottles and a small blue bag,  just the right size “for a hit of cocaine or a pair of party pills,” thinks Harri.

Looking through the young woman’s wallet, Harri finds the expected items plus a couple of surprises.  Besides the usual credit cards and photos, there’s an ID from the University of Chicago, $400 in bills, and a business card belonging to Detective Matt Kelley, a member of her own team of detectives.  When she calls him and describes the woman, he tells her that the student must be his niece, Ella Byrne.  Harri goes in the ambulance with Ella and arranges for Matt to meet them at the closest hospital.

Ella’s parents and Matt swear up and down that Ella is innocent, that they can’t think of anything that would have brought her to the park or why she was surrounded by alcohol and what Harri thinks are bags for drugs.  Although Ella answers most of the questions that Harri asks her, the detective feels certain that there’s more she’s holding back.

The tragedy of a family in crisis is all too familiar to Harri.  She relives the death of her teenaged son, dying in her front yard from a bullet shot randomly by a gang member, and the pointless death of her partner.

Four more bodies are found over the next few days.  The first is a young mother, her baby still cooing in his crib, a small blue bag next to her on her bed.  Then a man coming to play poker with three friends sees them through the house’s picture window slumped over a card table, chips and cards scattered everywhere.  And when Harri enters the scene, she spots the by-now familiar blue bags.

While Harri and her team are trying to understand how these seemingly unrelated deaths are connected, the reader is introduced to the infamous Gannons.  The patriarch of the family is dead, as are his sons, and now the head of the family is Cora Gannon, a woman as brutal and cruel as her father and brothers were.  Their lucrative illegal enterprises include drugs, vice, and all manner of criminal activity.  And they don’t plan to let the Chicago team of homicide detectives stop them.

The title EDGE refers to the drug that is causing these deaths, a new opioid that is making the rounds of the city.  But it also refers to Harri’s precarious state of mind, still reeling from the deaths of her son and partner.

Tracy Clark continues the excellent Harri Foster series with volume four.  Her characters and their actions are realistic, and the appearance of a new and dangerous drug on the Chicago scene will be all too frightening and familiar to readers.  In addition, those who have read the three earlier books will be pleased to see that Harri is taking small but important steps in coming to terms with her personal losses.

You can read more about the author at this website.