Powers of Arrest

Starred review from March 5, 2012
In Talton’s excellent second Cincinnati Casebook mystery (after 2009’s Pain Nurse), Cincinnati homicide detective Will Borders commits himself totally to solving the gory murder of a glamorous local policewoman, despite being all too conscious of his physical limitations after undergoing spinal surgery. Meanwhile, in nearby Oxford, Ohio, pain nurse Cheryl Beth Wilson, who treated Will in the previous book, begins investigating after two of her students are butchered and a third is briefly the main suspect. The crimes reunite Will and Cheryl Beth, but recognition of their loneliness and decency lets them become uncertain but brave lovers—while the sadistic killer watches them and boasts about creating clever “deathscapes.” The Ohio local color lends depth, and the threat of extreme violence compels, but the novel’s chief interest is watching two mature, vulnerable people become real partners whose survival really matters.

Starred review from May 15, 2012
A brave cop finds the kind of courage he didn't know he had. No one who's ever served with Will Borders doubts that he's a stand-up guy. The son of a hero policeman killed in the line of duty, Will has the right stuff in his DNA, glittering commendations on his personnel jacket, and unswerving momentum in his climb from street cop to detective in the much respected Cincinnati Homicide division. He's an authentic highflier until suddenly he becomes one of those forced to consider "the senseless, incomprehensible ways our bodies could go wrong." A tumor on his spinal cord requires complex surgery from which it takes months to recover. Now Will needs a cane to walk--the stand-up guy can't stand very long without recourse to pain pills--and he isn't a homicide detective any longer, for his bosses have shifted him to work that is more commensurate with his so-called handicap. Still, he's glad to be alive. Digging deep, he finds in himself another kind of courage sufficient to fend off lurking depression while he awaits a chance to prove that a cop with a cane can catch a murderer with the spryest of them. And then a vicious serial killer makes a crucial mistake. He singles Will out for special attention. Talton (Deadline Man, 2010, etc.) crafts a solid mystery while telling the engrossing, sometimes poignant story of a cop with a cane who refuses to be pigeonholed.

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May 1, 2012

Things fall apart one May weekend in the greater Cincinnati area. Initially it's difficult to see how three cases--a female cop's death on her small boat, a symphony cellist's knifing in his car downtown, and two nursing students sexually assaulted and killed on Miami University's bucolic Oxford campus--can possibly intersect. Homicide detective Will Borders, badly injured in his last outing, is soon investigating and working with his old partner, J.C. Dodds. Dodds knows they both can benefit from nurse Cheryl Beth Wilson's assistance, since she was the student victims' instructor and the Oxford case has similarities to the urban slayings. The investigators race through a harrowing week, gleaning clues from one victim's sister and, disturbingly, Will's own stepson. Clearly, a sadistic serial killer is terrorizing the region; figuring out his next move is the challenge. VERDICT With short chapters, shifting points of view, and engaging heroes, this sophomore series entry (after Pain Nurse) is a real page-turner. Talton has crafted a superb police procedural incorporating fascinating twists and a real love for Cincinnati.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2012
After Cincinnati detective Will Borders has a spinal tumor removed, he walks with difficulty and lives with pain, regretting not being the man he once was, particularly after he's taken off homicide and made public information officer. But things change when his PIO predecessor, Kristen Gruber, an accomplished officer renowned as star of a local reality-TV show, is brutally murdered and sexually mutilated, and Borders is made lead detective on the case. Then two nursing students from nearby Oxford, Ohio, are murdered in the same fashion, and the serial killer starts targetting Borders and, indirectly, Cheryl Beth Wilson, nursing instructor of the victims with whom Borders reconnected after they met during his hospitalization. Borders pursues the killler even after being taken off the case for personal reasons, as his relationship blossoms with Wilson, and danger to both increases. Full of praise for its Cincinnati locale (in marked contrast to the author's view of South Phoenix, the setting of his David Mapstone series), this sequel (to The Pain Nurse, 2009) confirms that the Will Borders novels have all the makings of a fine series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)