The Eulogist

July 17, 2017
Burton’s intricate third Drew Cady mystery (after 2015’s The Lynchpin) takes the FBI special agent from the Minneapolis field office to Washington, D.C., where he joins special agent Elizabeth Preston in investigating the stabbing death of Sen. Taylor Brockman. Brockman’s murder is quickly linked to the murder of troubled college kid TJ Aadalen, a scion of the powerful Aadalen Pharmaceutical family. After TJ went to prison for drug trafficking, Brockman, then the governor of Virginia, issued him a controversial pardon. Both Brockman and TJ were killed with a single, skilled knife thrust to the heart, and a sardonic eulogy note was left with each body. While Cady and Preston chase clues, an assassin identified only as the Canadian carries out assignments with brutal efficiency. A skilled hacker adds to the muddle. In the end, the rule-breaking Cady uses a blend of courage and smarts to untangle a farrago of crimes in an overloaded plot that some readers may have trouble following.