Good murder, mystery and suspense. A bad guy is having trouble catching and killing a bicycle messenger (the hero).

STORY BRIEF:
Jace is a bike messenger, about 19 years old. He has been taking care of his younger brother Tyler for six years, ever since his mother died. Jace and Tyler live in a room with the Chen family in Chinatown. They fear the police and social services because they don’t want to be separated into foster homes. At the end of a long day, Jace has one last messenger run. He picks up an envelope from sleazy attorney Lenny. When he gets to the delivery location, someone tries to run him over and shoot him, but Jace gets away. Jace then learns that Lenny was killed shortly after Jace saw him. The murder weapon was an item Jace had touched. Jace is on the run and hiding from the murderer and the police. Parker is the detective on the case. Parker is suspicious when politically connected detectives from another jurisdiction want to take over the case.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
Jace is the star. It feels like a roller coaster ride watching Jace speed through traffic on his bike, survive crashes, outrun the bad guys and stay alive due to amazing survival instincts. He reminds me of a rodent scurrying around back alleys and buildings that no one can catch. This was a good story, excellent writing. I didn’t want to stop reading it. It has a happy ending. I’m a lover of romance novels and rarely read straight mysteries, which is what this is, but I enjoyed it. My only complaint was wanting more details at the end about what happened to certain people, see Spoilers below.

I don’t want to be misleading, so I want to point out that the Jace story (roller coaster ride) takes up less than half of the time. The other half of the time is with Parker the detective, investigating and slowly unraveling the mystery, which was more like a typical investigation story. The best parts of the book were about Jace and his brother Tyler.

There were some intelligent and thought provoking comments that I marked and continued to think about after the story. Pages 49 and 75 talk about keeping one’s private life secret. Knowledge is power and others will spin it around and use it against you. Page 93: she enjoyed being angry. Anger was the fuel for her energy making her feel bigger and stronger. Page 146: why men kill and why women kill.

DATA:
Story length: 419 pages. Swearing language: strong. No sexual language or content. Setting: current day Los Angeles, California. Copyright: 2004. Genre: mystery suspense.

CAUTION MINOR SPOILERS:
I wanted more details at the end of the book. I was confused and wanted to know what Parker was going to do. He was suspended for 30 days and yet he said he quit. I also wanted to see some justice and pain for the DA and Kyle. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to them. The author was vague. Also, I was unclear about Kyle shooting a woman earlier, it may have been accidental. I wanted to know more.