Tampa police detective Carl Kane is called to an abandoned industrial building to view a crime scene. There are two middle-aged women dead behind the factory, killed execution-style. Inside are the bodies of several men, also shot to death. It’s hard to work out a scenario for the crime, which seems brutal beyond necessity. Shortly after that, there’s another mass killing, after hours in a strip club. Again, the crime looks as if somebody has been killing more people than they need to, in a simple robbery.

That’s how The First Shot, by E. H. Reinhard, starts. We follow the investigation as it progresses, until Kane finally finds himself face to face with an incredibly murderous psychopath.

“Incredibly” is the operative word here. The First Shot is an example of the sociopath story so popular in crime fiction today (I first encountered it in John D. MacDonald’s books. He did it better). The problem with the villain here is that he’s plain, flat evil. No motivations, no personal history, no redeeming qualities at all. Someone created for you to hate, and for no other purpose. Although I believe evil exists, I don’t believe anyone is solid, homogenized evil through and through. Tragedy, as Aristotle (I think it was Aristotle) told us, should evoke pity and terror. This guy evokes only terror. Which means he’s paradoxically both dull and evil.

I also don’t enjoy watching the innocent murdered. That happens again and again in this book.

The hero, Carl Kane, isn’t much better. We learn a couple things about his personal life – he transferred from Milwaukee after a bad divorce. He’s gun-shy in regard to relationships. And that about covers his character development. Other than that, he’s indistinguishable from the rest of the cops (I did have trouble telling them apart).

On top of that, the author tends to over-write. A lot of his verbiage could be cut by a good editor.

So all in all I wasn’t much impressed with The First Shot, and won’t be following this series.