Summary: Former cop Cass Raines has found the world of private investigation a less stressful way to eke out a living in the Windy City. When Father Ray Heaton asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she agrees. But only hours later she discovers his body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. It's dismissed as a late-night random theft, but Cass's instincts tell her that's not the motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan's. And she intends to see justice done....
Former cop Cass Raines has found the world of private investigation a less stressful way to eke out a living in the Windy City. But when she stumbles across the dead body of a respected member of the community, it's up to her to prove a murderer is on the loose . . .
Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. If anyone knows that it's Cass Raines, who took a bullet two years ago after an incompetent colleague screwed up a tense confrontation with an armed suspect. Deeply traumatized by the incident, Cass resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency, taking on just enough work to pay the bills. She spends the rest of her time keeping an eye on the tenants in her little Hyde Park apartment building, biking along the lakefront, and playing chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton.
When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. She knew Pop, as she called him, had ticked off plenty of people, from slumlords to drug dealers and even some parishioners and politicians, with his uncompromising defense of the downtrodden. But a late-night random theft doesn't seem like much of a motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan's.
The lead detective assigned to the case is all too ready to dismiss it as an interrupted burglary gone awry, just another statistic in a violent city. But Cass's instincts tell her otherwise, and badge or no badge, she intends to see justice done . . .
Former cop Cass Raines has found the world of private investigation a less stressful way to eke out a living in the Windy City. When Father Ray Heaton asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she agrees. But only hours later she discovers his body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. It's dismissed as a late-night random theft, but Cass's instincts tell her that's not the motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan's. And she intends to see justice done....
The title gives a hint to the depth of this debut PI novel. The Chicago Police Department lost one of its best homicide detectives, African American Cass Raines, after a shootout in which two bullets lodged near her aorta, nearly killing her and definitely weakening her arm and breaking her spirit. Now she works as a private investigator where she lives, in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood, an area itself filled with broken places. A strong feature of this book is that Cass is fully embedded in her community, giving her extra insight into what goes down there. The focus here is on what's happened in a church, where Cass' longtime mentor and chess buddy, Father Ray Heaton, has asked her to investigate a fire and break-in. Then Cass finds the community-activist priest shot to death in the confessional, and the body of a teen lying before the altar. While Clark tends to be a bit overexpansive with her descriptive passages, this street-smart first mystery boasts great characterization and a terrific new protagonist. Get this writer on your radar now.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2018 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
Nothing can deflect a private investigator from finding the killer of her surrogate father.Cass Raines was a cop until she and her partner, Detective Ben Mickerson, were almost killed in an incident they had under control until James Farraday, a glory-seeking cop with a lot of clout in the Chicago PD, rushed in and precipitated a gunfight. Raised by her grandparents after her mother died and her father took off, Cass was one of the few African-American women on the force, and she has no tolerance for bullshit. After leaving the force, she hung out her shingle as a private eye. Still wracked with guilt over her inability to prevent Farraday from killing a kid who was about to surrender, she happily works small cases for small money. When Father Raymond Heaton, whom Cass calls Pop, and a gangbanger are found shot dead in St. Brendan's Church and Farraday catches the case, Cass is determined to find the truth instead of accepting Farraday's pat answer that Pop killed the kid in a struggle and then killed himself out of guilt. Pop, an activist priest who supported righteous people and causes, had made quite a few enemies but was always giving second chances to even the worst of them. Although his housekeeper, Thea Bey, is no gossip, she gives Cass the names of several people she knows have recently tangled with Pop. Ben Mickerson, who's also on the case, warns Cass to leave it to the police and then passes her information that may help her. Her search takes her deep into gang territory and off on a wild chase after a mentally disturbed homeless man she believes witnessed the murders. She knows she's getting close when she becomes a target of the killer, but will she survive to solve the mystery?Clark's kickoff to an exciting new character-driven series explores the dynamics between a black investigator and a white world in a story ripped from the headlines. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Tracy Clark is the author of the highly acclaimed Chicago Mystery Series featuring ex-homicide cop turned PI Cassandra Raines, a hard-driving, African-American protagonist who works the mean streets of the Windy City dodging cops, cons, killers, and thugs. She received Anthony Award, Lefty Award and Shamus Award nominations for her series debut, Broken Places, which was also shortlisted for the American Library Association's RUSA Reading List, named a CrimeReads Best New PI Book of 2018, a Midwest Connections Pick, and a Library Journal Best Books of the Year. In addition to her Cass Raines novels, Tracy's short story "For Services Rendered," appears in the anthology Shades of Black:Crime and Mystery Stories by African‑American Authors. A native of Chicago, she works as an editor in the newspaper industry and roots for the Cubs, Sox, Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks equally. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, PI Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and a Mystery Writers of America Midwest board member. Find Tracy on Facebook, follow her on Twitter @tracypc6161, or visit her online at TracyClarkBooks.com.
TextSeries: A Chicago mystery | Clark, Tracy P., Chicago mystery ; Publisher: New York, NY : Kensington Books, 2018Edition: First Kensington hardcover editionDescription: vi, 361 pages ; 22 cmContent type: 
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