Conor Hagan was hard to miss. He was six four and looked like Michaelangelo’s less talented cousin had made him out of concrete.
I bought the collection of the first four Dead Cold Mystery books by Blake Banner, so I coasted right on into the third book, Garden of the Damned.
New York City cold case detective John Stone is intrigued by a 12-year-old file on another old unsolved murder. He notices something in the crime scene photos that eluded investigators at the time – who don’t seem to have worked the case too hard. The victim appears to have been a homeless man, shot and abandoned in a dumpster. But Stone notices that the man had an expensive haircut and manicured nails. This was no street person. This was a prosperous man who was murdered and then re-dressed, to mislead the police.
Along with his partner, Carmen Dehan, Stone starts asking questions, learning that the victim was a missing person – a wealthy young man who had been a devout Catholic, working tirelessly to help the poor. He and his fiancée had disappeared at precisely the same time, and no one had known their fate until now.
But why was he killed? The detectives learn that he was looking too closely into dark secrets being guarded by very powerful men, including men of the Church.
As always with Blake Banner’s books, Garden of the Damned was easy to read and fun. Some of the writing was very good, though plausibility wasn’t always high. Some very dark matters are touched on, and the Roman Catholic Church does not come out looking well at all.
