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Detectives Kay Delaney and Danny Finnerty are called to Morgan Langley, a private high school in Baltimore. On the grounds, a human heart has been discovered. Even with a search of the area, no other body parts are discovered. The witness to the dumping of the heart has only a vague description of a man in a van. Until the remainder of the corpse is discovered, there is not enough information to point to a motive or a suspect or even the victim's identity. As Delaney and Finnerty begin questioning the staff and students at Morgan Langley, they learn that a student has recently been raped and brutally attacked. Is this new corpse related to the rape case or is it merely coincidence? While Delaney is involved in this case, she is also worrying about a young man living on the streets. Antwon Washington is a street thug whose brother was killed by a rival gang leader. Delaney believes that Antwon has the chance at redemption. She wants to rescue him from the streets and allow him to live a productive life. Unfortunately, Antwon refuses to leave the streets until he catches and kills the man that killed his brother. Delaney must somehow convince Antwon to come in before he ends up killed or arrested. BLUE VALOR has a good storyline and sense of action. Unfortunately the characters of this mystery leave a little to be desired. Delaney and Finnerty are involved in a personal relationship outside of work, but they both lack the ability to talk to each other. Half the time they do not even communicate well at work much less on a personal level. In fact, Delaney is such a closed character that it is difficult to get a true sense of her opinions and beliefs even when she is introspective. There is nothing wrong with having an antisocial or reserved character, but the reader still needs to feel a connection with this person. Illona Haus has a lot of potential as an author. She obviously has interesting ideas about plots and stories as well as the ability to convey them to the reader. With a little more work on making her characters realistic and multi-dimensional, she could be a strong player in the genre. BLUE VALOR is the second mystery to feature Kay Delaney. As in the first mystery, Delaney frequently finds herself in the line of fire as she attempts to save the innocent or those she believes to be innocent.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, February 2006
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