Brian Freeman's debut novel "Immoral" is a suspenseful thriller in the Dennis Lehane/James Lee Burke mold. The book introduces detectives/lovers Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial in a murder mystery that has as many twists and turns in the plot as it has characters. When a young girl goes missing in the Minnesota woods without a trace, Detective Stride and his partners are left with an unsolved case. Several months later, when another young girl disappears under similar circumstances, Stride now faces a media frenzy and and an angry general public. Unfortunately, it's hard to solve a murder without a body, and Stride suspects that a murder may not have happened. Several years later, a break in the case leads Stride to, of all places, Las Vegas. It's there that he meets and falls in love with Serena Dial. Pooling their resources, the two detectives eventually solve the case. Great character development, atmospheric tension, and tight pacing make "Immoral" a stand-out in the detective genre. That, and Freeman can write. I look forward to reading the rest in the Stride/Dial series.