Review of Behind The Closed Door by Charles Prandy
Charles Prandy was born on 14th November 1973 and grew up in Derwood, Maryland. He has written several novels including The Last of the Descendants. Behind The Closed Door is the second book in the Detective Jacob Hayden series.
I am always a little reluctant to read second and third books in a series unless I have read the first book as nine times out of ten they are a direct follow on and there is a lot of presumption of knowledge. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to leap straight into Behind The Closed Door because the action starts straight away and this is a brand new case for the incredibly sexy and grieving Detective Jacob Hayden. The author is also very clever at drip feeding vital information about the character from book one that anyone picking up his books for the first time might have missed. There are also hooks a plenty leading into the third book in the series and I will definitely be looking out for it.
There are bank robberies and brutal murders galore, and some very strong and compelling characters. The plot is fast paced and sufficiently layered to keep readers guessing right up until the very end and while I figured out early on who the bad guy was, I had absolutely no idea about his motive until the author reveals it. There is also a great twist right at the end that had me chuckling.
My only issue with this book is the viewpoint which I think the author needs to go back and do some work on as some chapters are written in first person from the viewpoint of Detective Hayden and others are written in third person. I guess the author has done this so that people get the full picture from all angles however this is at times really confusing and looks clumsy. You can’t have your cake and eat it when writing a novel. You either write the whole thing from one person’s viewpoint (which wouldn’t work in a book like this) or you write it third person (which would have meant losing some of the inside the head moments with Detective Hayden) OR you go for an omniscient narrator throughout.
It is however a testament to the author’s storytelling skills and the strong male lead that I was completely hooked throughout in spite of the issues with viewpoint. I will definitely be reading more in this series as Detective Jacob Hayden has managed to get under my skin!
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