Summary and Reviews of Close Case by Alafair Burke

Close Case by Alafair Burke

Close Case

by Alafair Burke
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  • First Published:
  • Jul 1, 2005, 351 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2006, 368 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Investigating the brutal murder of a hotshot journalist, Samantha Kincaid finds herself caught in the middle of an increasingly personal - and potentially dangerous - struggle between Portland's police and the DA's office.

Investigating the brutal murder of a hotshot journalist, Samantha Kincaid finds herself caught in the middle of an increasingly personal-and potentially dangerous-struggle between Portland's police and the DA's office

For Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's thirty-second birthday, she gets an unusual gift: a homicide call out. The crime scene: the elite Hillside neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. The victim: hotshot investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw, who has been bludgeoned to death in his carport.

Tensions in the city have been running high. The previous week, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed mother of two in what he claims was self-defense; in the aftermath, protestors have waged increasingly agitated anti-police protests. Crenshaw's death, it seems, is not unrelated: within a matter of hours, police arrest two young men who appear to have embarked on a crime spree in the aftermath of the protests. The case looks straightforward, especially when one of the suspects confesses. But then the man recants, claiming coercive police tactics, and Samantha finds herself digging for more evidence. Following Crenshaw's steps, her search leads her through an elaborate maze of connections between the city's drug trade and officers in the bureau's north precinct.

Samantha's pursuit of the truth puts her in the middle of city political battles and on the outs with the cops, including her new live-in boyfriend, Detective Chuck Forbes. Worse yet, the path left by Crenshaw could lead Samantha to the same fatal end.

With Close Case, Alafair Burke delivers her most suspenseful and powerful novel yet.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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If you're a police procedural/thriller fan and have not yet tried one of Alafair Burke's books, this would be a good time to start!..continued

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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

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Beyond the Book



Close Case is the third in Alafair Burke's Samantha Kincaid series, preceded by Judgement Calls (2003) and Missing Justice (2004). She is a former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon who now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School and serves as a legal and trial commentator for radio and TV programs, including Court TV. She is also the daughter of crime writer, James Lee Burke. When asked whether she feels she's following in the footsteps of her father she says, "Actually, when it comes to mysteries, you could say my father followed in my footsteps. Many people don't know that he published several works before turning to crime fiction with The Neon Rain, so no one thought of my father as a mystery writer ...

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Read-Alikes

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