{"id":5868,"date":"2016-07-11T07:06:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T11:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5868"},"modified":"2016-07-11T07:06:45","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T11:06:45","slug":"the-bitter-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5868","title":{"rendered":"****The Bitter Season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Samurai\"

photo: David Pursehouse, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tami Hoag \u2013 The Bitter Season<\/em> is Hoag\u2019s latest crime thriller featuring the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based team of police detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska. This time, the pair is split up, because Liska has joined a new Cold Case unit, hoping for more regular working hours that will let her spend time with her teenage sons.<\/p>\n

The first case she\u2019s assigned is the 25-year-old murder of a fellow detective, Ted Duffy, a star in the department\u2019s sex crimes division, was shot to death in his back yard. The man\u2019s family is less than enthusiastic about dredging up the details of the crime again. Repeated investigations over the years have plowed the same unpromising ground, unearthing nothing more than painful memories.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kovac has a new partner, newbie Michael Taylor, who is not only easy to look at, but actually knows a few useful things. An adolescence spent watching martial arts movies comes in handy when Kovac and Taylor are assigned to a brutal new murder case. Lucien Chamberlain, a University of Minnesota faculty member in the running for the chair of the East Asia studies department and his wealthy, socially connected, alcoholic wife Sondra have been viciously murdered in their home. They were slashed and stabbed with items from the professor\u2019s collection of martial arts paraphernalia\u2014a collection that is, the medical examiner\u2019s investigator says, \u201ca homicidal maniac\u2019s wet dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of the woodwork comes a parade of victims. Or are they suspects?<\/p>\n

Despite working on separate cases, Kovac and Liska interact fairly often, and the banter between them and their teams\u2019 other detectives is lively. They\u2019re experts at bringing in a spot of erudition, too. \u201cShakespeare would have had a freaking field day with these people,\u201d Kovac says, and another detective responds, \u201c\u02bbThou hast spoken right, \u02bctis true. The wheel is come full circle . . .\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But are Kovac\u2019s and Liska\u2019s cases truly separate? Through fast-moving chapters written from alternating perspectives, you see these skilled detectives work their way through to the core of their respective cases, culminating in a surprising confrontation that demonstrates how skillfully Hoag has laid out her clues.<\/p>\n

A longer version of this review appeared on CrimeFictionLover.com<\/a>.
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