Little Faith

June 26, 2006
The death of innocence lends a bittersweet tone to Simon's third crime novel (after 2005's Body Scissors
) to feature Dan Reles, a world-weary, middle-aged Austin, Tex., homicide detective who sees himself as a "six-foot, New York-born, ex-boxer Jew with a Mafia grunt father" and a loser with women. In April 1995, Reles has been on the force for almost 20 years and wants to be promoted. When he's called to the suspicious "suicide" scene of a former TV child star, 18-year-old Faith Copeland, he knows solving this high-profile crime might get him the recognition he needs. Meanwhile, homicide sergeant Catarina "Cate" Mora searches for Rolando "Rolo" Ortiz, a cute 13-year-old runaway whose mother has been wrongfully imprisoned. Both cops are horrified when Rolo's body turns up in the Texas lieutenant governor's bed, but making the connection between the two tragedies yields even more disturbing, if far-fetched, revelations about an extreme religious sect and political corruption.

In the third book of a series set in the 1990s, an Austin police detective works on a murder that involves government corruption. Several additional deaths ensue; political implications arise, with an unnamed George W. Bush passing in and out of a few scenes. The two narrators struggle with the material and mostly pull it off. Tom Stechschulte, playing the protagonist cop, Dan Reles, peppers his gravelly voice with hints of irony. Sounding like James Garner in "The Rockford Files," he is particularly effective. With a higher-pitched, younger-sounding voice, Peter Jay Fernandez moves the story along with deliberate pacing, exhibiting mild emotion as appropriate. The successful performances mitigate the story line, which is grim and sad until the end. D.R.W. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine