Review: HELL BENT, William G. Tapply
Hell Bent, A Brady Coyne Mystery
by William G. Tapply
St. Martin’s Minotaur
October, 2008
Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35830-3
ISBN-10: 0-312-35830-X
320 pages
Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney, living with a dog named Henry David Thoreau in his Beacon Hill apartment. He is in a transition period – his live-in lover, Evie, has gone to California to attend her dying father, and she shows less and less intent to return as time passes, leaving Brady uncertain of his status. He spends his days in lawyerly pursuits, and his nights talking to Henry and wondering.
It is at this point that Alex Sinclair, an old flame from seven years in the past, resurfaces with a request: will Brady represent her brother, Gus, in his divorce? Gus, a photojournalist who lost his right hand covering the Iraq war, has returned bitter, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. He is surly, seems not to care about the divorce one way or another, and is, Alex says, not the same man she grew up with. Shortly after taking the case, Gus is found dead, an open-and-shut suicide; so the police and medical examiner determine, and so it went into the books.
Alex, and to some degree, Brady, are skeptical of the finding, and Alex prevails upon Brady to investigate.
What follows is a well-written mystery that finds Brady coming up against apparently irrefutable evidence of suicide at every turn, yet still finding questions. Where are the photographs Gus shot in Iraq and emailed to his wife, photographs no one has seen, but are of interest to many? How do they figure into the suicide, if suicide it was? These questions and others keep Brady on the trail to a confrontation with roots decades in the past. This is a good read.
by William G. Tapply
St. Martin’s Minotaur
October, 2008
Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35830-3
ISBN-10: 0-312-35830-X
320 pages
Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney, living with a dog named Henry David Thoreau in his Beacon Hill apartment. He is in a transition period – his live-in lover, Evie, has gone to California to attend her dying father, and she shows less and less intent to return as time passes, leaving Brady uncertain of his status. He spends his days in lawyerly pursuits, and his nights talking to Henry and wondering.
It is at this point that Alex Sinclair, an old flame from seven years in the past, resurfaces with a request: will Brady represent her brother, Gus, in his divorce? Gus, a photojournalist who lost his right hand covering the Iraq war, has returned bitter, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. He is surly, seems not to care about the divorce one way or another, and is, Alex says, not the same man she grew up with. Shortly after taking the case, Gus is found dead, an open-and-shut suicide; so the police and medical examiner determine, and so it went into the books.
Alex, and to some degree, Brady, are skeptical of the finding, and Alex prevails upon Brady to investigate.
What follows is a well-written mystery that finds Brady coming up against apparently irrefutable evidence of suicide at every turn, yet still finding questions. Where are the photographs Gus shot in Iraq and emailed to his wife, photographs no one has seen, but are of interest to many? How do they figure into the suicide, if suicide it was? These questions and others keep Brady on the trail to a confrontation with roots decades in the past. This is a good read.
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