Lowen Clausen's first book was good. Really good. But this one, his second, is wonderful!! Set in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, beat police Katherine Murphy and Grace Stevens work on a homicide case. Clawsen sets such a believable scene that I half expect to hear reports of his plot on my evening news! There are also some truly wonderful and remarkable characters in this one. I sure hope he's hot on the third. ( )

If not for the author photo (which still could be fake) I would have thought this book was written by a woman. It’s relationshippy, if you know what I mean. People form tight bonds based on practically nothing but propinquity. Some instantly. Everyone is caring and tender to one another as a first reaction. It’s even got whiffs of romance, but only whiffs. Odd.

It is, but isn’t, a police procedural. The cops who find the murder victims are beat cops and not homicide investigators. They only get roped into the case as lures to draw out the killer. Of course they are set up as prostitutes and nary a male cop makes a snide remark or cracks a bad joke. Nope. They were yelled at by their oh-so-PC boss. Also male. Again, weird. Both gendered cops disparage the way it used to be when women cops got hassled for doing this kind of duty. Nice, but on what planet?

And that’s what’s a little uneven about this. All the cops bar a few are really trying to treat Grace and Katherine as equals and just part of the team, but the citizens react with surprise and even hostility at the mere idea of women police.Very strange for a book set in 2003. Which makes me think (as other books have done recently) that this is an old manuscript and should have had a more realistic date indicated in the text. Given the typewriter in the station house, the dearth of cell phones and one guy saying that Starbucks was planning to go public very soon it’s clearly 1990 or 91. Starbucks went public in 1992.

The bad guy(s) and future victim(s) are easy to spot. Not too surprising there. Of course Thomas, the endearingly nerdy homeless man helps find the kid before it’s too late. Things are foreshadowed nicely (like Mrs. Rabin and the hoe) and end plausibly. I could have done with less Norwegian stuff - the food, the stories of the old country, etc., a little went a long way. The women hold their own and work with back up well. It seems that Clausen was using the Tana French method before she was - changing main characters within a specific location or circumstance. Book one features Kathrine more tangentially and the third features Grace more prominently. I liked both women both professionally and personally. I might just read the other books. ( )