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Veteran Chicago police detective John Thinnes is assigned a rape case, along with a new partner. He hates doing rape cases and even more, hates working with anyone else since his last few partners have all been the victims of unfortunate accidents. Nonetheless, acting department head Lt. Rossi sends Thinnes to upscale Lincoln Park on the case, where he immediately alienates his new partner, Don Franchi, by not waiting for her to go to the scene with him and, when she does show up, by assigning scut work to her. Meanwhile, the court assigns a 23-year old rapist, Terry Deacon, to Jack Caleb, a psychiatrist, with whom Thinnes has become friendly. Another of Caleb's new patients is a woman who had been raped 15 years earlier and has been having flashbacks. And, to add insult to injury, Rossi hands the files on all open rape cases to Thinnes. A pattern is established on the open cases. The women appear to be taken on Friday and their beaten bodies dumped, to be discovered on Monday. Dogged police work, with some advice from Caleb, helps to find the perpetrator. This book is hard to categorize. Dymmoch attempts to analyze Thinnes' motives in rejecting his new partner. Caleb, the psychiatrist is gay, but that doesn't seem to have any impact on this particular entry in the series. Basically. this is a police procedural with psychological overtones, ostensibly about rape but with an indication of the pervasiveness of rape in our society and how it affects everyone. Perhaps the author tries a little too hard for a hard-boiled noirish setting, but she does make some valid points. I think that probably this series has to be read in order, because every time a new character is introduced, we get a detailed description. The older characters are never described.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, April 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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