Title: Flights and Falls by R.M. Greenaway
B.C. Blues Crime Series Book Four
Publisher: Dundurn
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 384 pages
Book Rating: B
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
A string of incidents causes Cal Dion to learn some harsh truths about himself.
A single-vehicle crash on the Sea to Sky Highway is blamed on the notorious stretch of road — but when bad things start happening to the good people who stopped to help the victim, North Vancouver RCMP Constable Dave Leith starts to wonder if something darker is at play.
Leith and his partner, JD, work through clues that are as close to bizarre as they’ve ever seen. At the same time, Leith is keeping tabs on a murder suspect who is too close for comfort: Cal Dion, a cop and colleague, knows all about crime — and perhaps how to get away with it.
Dion is looking at a long fall from grace, but his mind is on the Sea to Sky killings, and he’s beginning to think the team is on the wrong track. Could it be that a crime from his turbulent past holds the key?
Review:
Flights and Falls by R.M. Greenaway is a perplexing police procedural that is set in British Columbia. Although this latest release is the fourth installment in the B.C. Blues Crime series, it can be read as a standalone. However, to fully understand an ongoing story arc, I recommend the previous novels as well.
Constables Dave Leith and JD Temple are investigating quite a few cases in this latest outing. Their first case is the puzzling car accident which resulted in death of a young woman. This investigation takes an interesting turn when two people who were at the scene become victims of two unrelated crimes. The first known victim is new officer Craig Gilmartin who was first shot at as he was walking down the street. Later that evening, he is shot in his own home and he is now in very serious condition in the hospital.
The next Good Samaritan has been reported missing by his wife and troubled RCMP officer Cal Dion stumbles across his body in the forest. Once Cal learns of the deceased connection to the fatal car crash, he does a little quiet investigating on his own and comes up with an unusual theory about the cause of the accident. He takes his suspicions to Leith who is skeptical but knows he cannot discount Dion’s hypothesis. In the course of this leg of the investigation, JD becomes a mentor to Dezi Novak, a young woman who was also at the scene of the accident.
Since he is trying to maintain a low profile around his former co-workers and boss Sergeant Mike Bosko, Cal reluctantly lends a hand to the investigations. He is aware that Bosko has his suspicions about the circumstances surrounding the car accident that left Cal with a traumatic brain injury and killed Dion’s friend and fellow officer. Cal is reaching the end of his mandatory counseling and he is experiencing regret over the decisions he made following the accident. More troublesome are his concerns that a witness from that fateful night will come forward and provide details about the events that occurred before the crash. Unbeknownst to Cal, Bosko might be about to put the pieces together with the help of someone who is finally ready to reveal what promises to be damning information. Is Dion’s house of cards about to come crashing down?
Flights and Falls is a complex and multi-layered mystery that slowly comes together over the course of the investigation. Leith and Temple are in the forefront for the search for the truth how these three cases are linked. However, Dion’s flashes of brilliance are crucial to solving the crimes. R.M. Greenaway pulls all of the disparate threads of the three cases together during the novel’s twist-filled conclusion.
Although the current mysteries are completely wrapped up, Cal’s fate once again hangs in the balance. A fantastic addition to B.C. Blues Crime series which will leave readers impatiently awaiting the next release.
