Cooper's Moon: A Cooper Mystery

by Richard C. Conrath

No parent wants to lose a child. No parent wants to outlive her child. And when that happens, well, it's like getting hit by lightning on a perfect day, a sunny day. And that's what happened to Cooper and his wife, Jillie. On an average day in early fall, in front of their house, in a small rural Ohio town, on one of those perfect days, the sun out in full dress, not hiding behind clouds, Maxie playing in his front yard, his mom in the house, his dad teaching at the college--just steps away--and the boy chases a ball into the street. And only one person claimed to have seen him--a man whom the town considered 'touched in the head'--and he said he saw Maxie get into the back of a dark car with a stranger and "That's the last I saw of him, I swear," he said.
And that single devastating incident changes their lives forever. They spend a year searching for Maxie, fighting and blaming one another. Then Cooper gets a call from a friend in Miami, a homicide detective, who claims to have a clue to his son's disappearance. Cooper quits his job at the college and goes to Miami where he joins the Miami PD, hoping his new job will help him in his search for his son.
Cooper's Moon opens seven years after his son's disappearance with Cooper, now a homicide detective, at the scene of a shooting of a twelve-year-old boy near Little Haiti in Miami. From there, Cooper goes on the ride of his life that leads him ultimately to quit the department and open up his own private investigation firm where he specializes in looking for missing kids.
His first client is the mother of a murdered twelve-year-old boy. That case leads him into the dangerous world of gangs and kidnapping and high-speed chases through the Everglades as he risks his own life to track down missing children and save his own son.

400 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2018

Reviews

[Kikki]

I love the literary feel of this crime thriller novel. The fact that it is a trilogy makes me both happy (to know there are two more coming), but also unhappy (because I have to wait a while to get to the finale!) Regardless, I love the main characters: Cooper, the philosophy prof turned cop turned PI is a believable guy -- brooding, pensive, intelligent, sarcastic, but he also has a VERY dark side. Like almost black.....Then Richie, the hitman who is Coooper's BFF (who fights for that right with the crazy Seminole alligator hunter, Huxter Crow), and his friend, Louise, the very hipster Miami PD who seems to have the hots for Cooper. (But wait, there's a wife in the picture too, so don't get too cozy, you two). I'm thrilled to find Conrath, another new author, who, like some of my favorites including Dennis Lehane, Kurt Vunnegut, Karin Fossum, John Updike, John Irving, and Stephen King -- have recurring characters -well, it just makes a reader feel somehow closer to each one. We all have to slug and trudge, prance and dance, and walk and talk around life anyway--what the heck, we may as well do it together!

[Annalinda Ragazzo]

Excellent detective story...professor turned cop turned private eye Cooper brings to life the real beasts lurking in the Everglades and they walk on two legs!
Randy Wayne Wright's Doc Ford has a crime fighting buddy.

[Dara Kay]

I thought it was excellent! Fast pace, easy read & kept my attention which is hard to do.
I will read more of his.