Incendiary Designs

Jack Caleb & John Thinnes #3

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

Jogging through Chicago's Lincoln Park, Dr. John Caleb comes upon a group of fanatics setting a police car on fire -- with the officer inside. Caleb rescues the man but as Chicago heats up in the most brutal summer on record, it becomes clear that this is the first of a series of deadly arsons.As Detective John Thinnes races to find the culprit and Dr. Caleb sets a trap for a murderer, both men are nearly incinerated in the killer's final act.

Genres: Mystery

Hardcover

First published September 15, 1998

About the author

Michael Dymmoch was born in Illinois and grew up in a suburb northwest of Kentucky. As a child she kept a large number of small vertebrates for pets and aspired to become a snake charmer, Indian chief or veterinarian. She was precluded from realizing the former ambitions by a lack of charm and Indian ancestry and from the achieving the latter by poor grades in calculus and physics. This made her angry enough to kill. Fortunately, before committing mayhem, she stumbled upon a book titled Maybe You Should Write a Book and was persuaded to sublimate her felonious fantasies. Moving to Chicago gave Michael additional incentives to harm individuals who piss her off. On paper of course.

Reviews

[Carl Brookins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incendiary Designs is a complicated novel that skirts the edges of coincidence, but always draws away and resolves itself in logical, thoughtful ways. It’s a tribute to the control and talent of author Dymmoch.

Chicago Psychiatrist Jack Caleb is jogging one hot dark night when he comes across a riotous scene and discovers that a small mob of crazies is intent on burning a car. With a shock, he realizes the car is a police squad and there is a semi-conscious cop still inside. Since these squads almost always carry two officers, where is the other? Caleb risks his own life and rescues the officer, thereby placing himself squarely in the middle of a complex case of murder, arson, greed connected to the charismatic membership of a small storefront religious group.

The murder of a cop sends shock waves and high determination through the entire ranks of the Chicago PD and detective John Thinnes is immediately assigned to handle the case. The book brings together two strong dynamic characters, the consulting psychiatrist Caleb and the detective. Theirs is an uneasy if complementary relationship in which each draws on the experience and skills of the other to solve the case. Throughout this gritty, fast-paced novel, the author has woven an enthralling sub-plot, the developing relationship between the psychiatrist and his new-found friend, Dr. Martin Morgan. Morgan is in the throes of a pending divorce and a difficult examination of his identity. The scenes of their gradually deepening friendship are among the most moving and sensitive one is likely to find in the genre. When Dr. Morgan is found to be linked to the people probably responsible for the destruction of the squad car and the initial murder, a whole new level of complexity is introduced.

The book takes readers inside the Chicago PD, through some of the city’s meanest streets and explores several levels of Chicago’s social structure. And always, in a complex city with a complicated plot, the clear, direct writing of the author, her sensitivity and her realism, makes this a fine novel with clear and logical conclusions. A fine effort.

[BRT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good mystery in this series as the interrelationships between the characters continue to develop. The attraction/potential romance between Caleb and a potential murder suspect seemed not to flow smoothly with the storyline. Although I was happy that he found someone. I'll be interested to see if the relationship continues in the next book. Also the one excessively obnoxious cop in the precinct is getting a bit much. Otherwise, enjoyed this book.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incendiary Designs - G+
Michael Allen Dymmoch - 3rd in series
Chicago homicide detective John Thinnes and gay psychiatrist Dr. Jack Caleb, the unlikely and slightly mismatched stars of Dymmoch's well-received The Man Who Understood Cats and The Death of Blue Mountain Cat, continue their somewhat uneasy alliance in this third installment. The solid, sometimes tedious but always believable details of Thinnes's investigation of a series of arson murders serve as ballast for some heavy coincidences that ground the plot line. The first of these is used to connect the pair and describes Caleb's heroics when, jogging in Lincoln Park one morning and coming upon a band of cultists trying to burn a cop car, he fends them off long enough to pull out the cop who has been locked inside. Thinnes is put on the case. Another obviously convenient twist is Caleb's developing relationship with a man who becomes one of the suspects in an arson-for-hire scheme.

This books wasn't quite up to the level of the previous books due to a somewhat unbelievable motive, but I do enjoy this series. Great, well-developed characters.

[Lori S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dymmoch is one of those authors who improve every time they put out a book and I actually liked this book better than the first book in the series The Man Who Understood Cats. Detective Thinnes and Dr. Caleb are interesting characters, even if the writing takes a step back from letting us deep into either of their thoughts or emotions. Where Ms. Dymmoch does really well is building up the mystery at the center of the book, which takes something like a year to finally solve.