Eriq La Salle

Eriq La Salle's Laws of Wrath took me by surprise. For some reason,I was looking for something along the lines of Sci-Fi and found a well-plotted Thriller instead. If you like a lot of details and background information to help you understand the characters, then Eriq La Salle does a great job with that. He creates a nice balance between each character's background and their present-day personalities,without making the reader feel as though they're receiving a historical lecture.

When the story begins, Eriq shocks us with one of the characters, Dr. Zibik, who I thought would have a short and insignificant role at first. He paints this timid and shy picture of her until she is escorted inside the all women's maximum security prison; here, Dr. Zibik's character transforms into this lethal killer and invokes fear in the other inmates, as soon as the handcuffs come off. Her mission to exercise control inside a prison complex is accomplished. No one wants to tango with the Devil.

The meat of the story begins to unfold a couple of chapters in, starting with the broken relationship between A.J., the trans-sexual, and his brother Phee, a New York officer. It's not before long when tragedy strikes Clay's home and his youngest son, Phee, must deliver the news of A.J.'s death. What Eriq does with this situation, is take us back in time to Clay's violent past. At the news of Clay's eldest son's death, he begins to wonder if karma came to pay him a visit for the lives he took many years earlier. In spite the strained relationship he had with A.J., Eriq is careful not to bury Clay's love for his son. He does the same with Phee. He plays on Phee's guilt for failing to help A.J. when he was alive, by tormenting him with A.J.'s gutted corpse and lidless eyes staring at him in the morgue. It almost seems as though this tragedy is Phee's motive to reconcile on a spiritual level with his dead brother; with the help of his partner Quincy, Phee races against the clock to put this and a string of other mysterious murders to bed. This is when Zibik's character really comes to life as the mastermind, the manipulator, the True Throne. When the Feds use Zibik to get to the perpetrators responsible for the mysterious murders, it all plays in Zibik's favor... for a while.

No one goes unnoticed in this book. Every character has a story and yet, all eyes are still on Phee and the investigation. Things are shaken up when the investigation gets turned upside down, Phee goes AWOL and is torn between being a cop and a civilian; Quincy is still trying to play it by the books while Phee is out for blood.

Eriq La Salle has made Laws of Wrath well worth the read. If you're looking for an intense, drama-filled plot, this book is packed with it. You will be on your toes all the way to the end.

Worth five stars.… (meer)

A Study Atonement, Confession, Revenge and Evil

Father O’Conner, found flayed in his office by the janitor, brings Detectives Quincy Cavanaugh and Tavares “Phee” Freeman to the scene of the brutal slaying. They follow the corpse to the city morgue.

There they discover FBI Agent Janet Maclin who hopes to relate this murder to The Martyr Maker. This serial killer is Maclin’s only open case. Over a period of thirty years, thirty-six priests and preachers have been murdered in ways reminiscent of the martyrdom of Jesus and twelve of the major and minor apostles, twelve murders every ten years.

Dr. Kravitz, New York City’s chief coroner, following Maclin’s direction, finds a plastic capsule in O’Conner’s stomach containing a rolled up piece of paper with a passage of scripture written on it, confirming the perpetrator’s MO. Maclin, Quincy and Phee now work together in this police procedural trying to get ahead of a killer that is now threatening the clergy of New York City in this police procedural.

Coming from diverse backgrounds each individual peopling this book is flawed and complex. Each character deals with the evil in his or her background, as well as its cost on the present, in different ways. The depth of the story and its expected and unexpected twists and turns, makes for a highly enjoyable read.
La Salle spent two years at the Juilliard School’s Drama Division. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Best-known as Dr. Benton in the television drama ER, La Salle has acted on and off Broadway and in films. He has produced, directed and written screenplays. Laws of Depravity is his first novel.

Drawing on his years of experience in storytelling on the stage, television, and movies, this novel is highly visual and visceral. This is a “modern day parable cleverly masquerading as a crime novel:” a study of atonement, confession, revenge, and evil. Its characters are multi-layered bringing depth and vivid reality to this police procedural. Each must confront not only with the depravity of a twisted mind, but also the defeated or suppressed depravities that have shaped their own lives and families, that have made them who they are. The reader is in for a page-turning experience that leaves supper dishes undone and creates bleary-eyed days at the office.

This book reviewed for Readers Favorite.… (meer)