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Alex Delillo is a lieutenant in the homicide detective of the Pasadena, California, Police Department. It's puzzling to find that a man who just died was trying to send her a fax right before his death. It's shocking to find that this man, John Manning, is her half brother and that she had never before known of his existence. Certainly, her family life was quite dysfunctional. Her father, Thomas Manning, was an actor and a man who abused his wife. Alex also discovers that he may have been a murderer, as he was a prime suspect in the River Killings of three young women 18 years earlier. No one wants to believe such a thing of their own father, but Alex has very eerie half-memories of her childhood that support the idea that Thomas Manning was a man to be feared. Along with one of the detectives in her department, Dylan Harrison, Alex goes into a deep investigation of her brother and father. Her brother's death took place in a place that is the responsibility of the Los Angeles Police Department. They believe that John's death is a suicide, but Alex becomes convinced that it is murder. Could her father have murdered his own son? As she and Harrison pursue the leads, they find that the LAPD seem to be covering up information – why would they not share their files and notes with their sister police department? Why did Alex's brother die in almost the same spot as the victims of the River Killings? Is Alex's father dead or alive? Did she suffer abuse at her father's hands when a child? Why are the LAPD being so difficult to deal with? There are a lot of questions that draw the reader deeper and deeper into the narrative, with some surprising responses along the way. At the same time as the people in the story are destroying one another, Mother Nature is wreaking her destruction on the Los Angeles area, with summer fires eating up whole neighborhoods. My one lingering question about the book is how Delillo and Harrison were able to spend all their time on this case, even though it was outside their jurisdiction. I felt Frost squandered an opportunity to show us how a female operated in a position of power in a predominantly male world. We rarely saw Alex in action with her team. Instead, she came across as just another detective (albeit, a good one). I also felt it was unfortunate that Delillo and Harrison were interested in each other in a romantic way. Frost excels at ratcheting up the suspense and building a complex and puzzling plot with a good sense of pacing which keeps things moving. There are a few too many sub-plots, but the author resolves all of them well and in a fair way. Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, NEVER FEAR is a page-turner that will be loved by thriller fans.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, February 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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