Kill the Messenger: a novel by Tami Hoag

A rip-roaring read!, November 29, 2004****


Turn up the lights and curl up by the fire for a rip-roaring read. Tami Hoag has crafted a roller-coaster crime thriller with well-developed characters and a fastpaced plot. The messenger of the title is J.C.(Jace)Damon, a bike courier who is finishing the last drop of the day when someone comes very close to killing him. Jace has a package of negatives which someone badly wants. He spends the rest of the novel on the run, trying to protect his younger brother Tyler, aided and abetted by the Chen family in Chinatown where he had taken refuge from Children Protective services when his mother died.

Also in pursuit of Jace are some dysfunctional LAPD detectives including Kev Parker who was bumped down in rank after an earlier case of his went up in smoke during trial, embarrassing the ADA who now has it in for Kev. A couple of other high profile detectives want to take Kev's case from him and Internal Affairs is hot on his trail.

The plot takes a number of interesting twists. I dare you to figure out the villain who is being backmailed until the the author reveals the identity in a shootout in the last few pages. In fact, if I have one complaint about this novel, it is that the villain comes as too much of a surprise. Given the story up to that point,the ending seems a bit incongruent with the rest of the plot but Hoag does a good job of making it seem plausible. All in all, an excellent book.