The Hook

October 31, 2016
O’Mara’s absorbing fourth Raymond Donne mystery (after 2015’s Dead Red) finds the former New York City policeman, now dean of a middle school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a crime scene in Manhattan. The murder victim, Marty Glover, was Ray’s late father’s former law partner and recent recipient of Williamsburg’s Man of the Year Award. A school parent, Maria Robles, later phones Ray to say that her son, Hector, after hearing of Marty’s death, has locked himself in his bedroom and is refusing to come out unless he talks to Ray. Hector had grown attached to Marty, who was sponsoring him in a mentorship program. After meeting with Hector, Ray is pulled into unofficially investigating Marty’s murder. With the help of Allison Rogers, his reporter girlfriend, and friend Edgar Martinez O’Brien, a technophile and civilian crime-fighting junkie, Ray pursues a trail that leads to long-buried secrets, a two-decades-old rape case, and shady legal shenanigans. O’Mara skillfully ties all the various plot lines together. Agents: Erin Niumata and Maura Teitelbaum, Folio Literary Management.

January 1, 2020
What a setup! Raymond Donne quit the police department for a post at a Brooklyn middle school. He's a dean and assistant principal, but students call him Teacherman, and he doesn't give us gumshoe lectures on the awfulness of everything. Instead, he promotes student nightmares like algebra. It's like police work; you put bits of info together "to find the unknown." His chance comes as he views the body of a murdered colleague, who was killed by an arrow on the roof of the schoolhouse. The bits of info include a Roman numeral near the body and, later, a tox report saying the corpse was full of drugs. Raymond knows the man was in a successful recovery program, which prompts Teacherman to do some policing work again. Readers' reactions to what happens next will vary according to their feelings about pace. Instead of a straight-ahead investigation, the narrative constantly releases tension with digressions on white supremacy, reporter blogs, addiction treatment. Well done, but slow. Readers who give up will miss Raymond's shocking final act and the chance to agree with his lover's anger at him.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2016
Harry Stover is murdered at a party in his honor as Man of the Year in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood. In attendance is police-officer-turned-teacher Raymond Donne (from Dead Red, 2015). Ray's uncle is the chief of police, and his late father was Stover's law partner. The last time Donne saw Stover was when Donne was helping one of his students get a place in Stover's Bridges to Success program. As in his three previous outings, Donne can't keep his nose out of things once he's got a whiff of a compelling case. Donne's uncle worries that Ray will use his unofficial investigation to feed scoops to his journalist girlfriend. What he should be more worried about is the high-profile hornet's nest Donne starts poking when one of Stover's former clients becomes a suspect. Donne's rapport with his students, his larger-than-life uncle, and his smart, strong-willed girlfriend make him stand out in a crowd of quasi-amateur New York detectives. A series that deserves some more attention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)