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The Deep Dark Descending by Allen Eskens
3.5 �
Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife’s death, even when he believed that a reckless hit-and-run driver was to blame. Haunted by memories both beautiful and painful, he is plagued by feelings of unfinished business. When Max learns that, in fact, Jenni was murdered, he must come to terms with this new information—and determine what to do with it.
Struggling to balance his impulses as a vengeful husband with his obligations as a law enforcement officer, Max devotes himself to relentlessly hunting down those responsible. For most of his life, he has thought of himself as a decent man. But now he’s so consumed with anguish and thoughts of retribution that he finds himself on the edge, questioning who he is and what he stands for. On a frozen lake at the US–Canadian border, he wrestles with decisions that could change his life forever, as his rage threatens to turn him into the kind of person he has spent his entire career bringing to justice.There are, as with an novel, things that work to drive the story on, and those that could have been built on or left out entirely...but unfortunately neither happened here. This author uses an interesting plot to build momentum... alternating between the present, in which Rupert holds the man he believes killed his wife and unborn child to account in the middle of a frozen lake...and the past three days, in which he tracks down this man.
The character of the believed killer was unlikable, unbelievable, and very shallow. You really didn't care one way or the other if he lived or died and after a while you began to urge Rupert to come on and make that decision.
The bottom line is that Allen Eskens is a talented writer but this effort could have used a bit more action and a lot less narrative.
