The First Victim

Starred review from June 28, 1999
Impeccably paced, beautifully observed and moving with a crescendo of suspense, this is another thoughtful and exciting Seattle-based police thriller from Pearson (The Pied Piper), whose skill at maintaining a balance between the narrative thrust of his plot and the personal lives of his characters makes him a top-notch practitioner of the genre. We learn just enough about Lt. Lou Boldt's current situation to realize that his recent promotion has had mixed benefits: he misses street work and bends the rules to get out from behind his desk. We also discover that his wife Liz's apparent remission from cancer has created some domestic tension--she credits her good results to faith; he can't quite make the same leap--and that financial pressure caused by the loss of her income has made him think about leaving the police force. We acquire this information gradually, as naturally as we would in real life, while being swept along through a heartbreaking narrative that involves illegal Chinese immigrant women being smuggled into Seattle in cargo containers. The story becomes a crusade for two sharp and ambitious female journalists--local TV superstar Stevie McNeal and Melissa Chow, the young Chinese woman McNeal's father adopted, and whom Stevie calls "Little Sister." Lieutenant Boldt and his unusually well-defined team become involved when Melissa goes underground as an illegal and then disappears. Bodies of several Chinese women are found in a public graveyard, the "first victims" of a particularly vicious gang of smugglers. As one of Boldt's colleagues explains to McNeal, "The first victim is generally the one that is handled carelessly." Like all of Pearson's insights into the minds of criminals, cops and citizens, this one is strong, subtle and full of resonance. Atmospheric descriptions of Seattle and some fascinating forensic evidence add texture to a riveting story. $250,000 ad/promo. (July) FYI: The mass market edition of The Pied Piper, released simultaneously, will carry a teaser chapter from The First Victim.

March 15, 1999
When TV anchor Stevie McNeal investigates evidence that illegal aliens are being smuggled into the United States via Seattle, she ends up at cross purposes with Pearson regular Lou Boldt of the Seattle Police.

Starred review from May 15, 1999
Pearson's Lou Boldt series continues to meld the small-scale, detail-driven precision of the best procedurals with the large-canvas, screw-tightening suspense of such high-concept thrillers as "Silence of the Lambs." This time, recently promoted Seattle Police Lieutenant Boldt finds himself confined to a desk while his protege, Sergeant John LaMoia, does the fieldwork. It doesn't sit well with Boldt, who, in spite of himself, craves the "dead bodies, if only because they kept his mind alive, his imagination active, and his raison d'etre intact." There are plenty of bodies to go around when a shipping container washes ashore full of Chinese immigrants, both dead and dying. An investigative reporter covering the case soon disappears, adding kidnapping to Boldt's plate and hurtling the lieutenant out of his chair and back into action, protocol notwithstanding. The trail is as multifaceted as ever, beginning with establishing time of death by studying the algae adhered to the shipping container, and ending with the discovery of a Chinese sweatshop in a confiscated freighter on Seattle's waterfront. Boldt's usual partner, forensic psychologist Daphne Matthews, plays a lesser role this time, but in her place Pearson substitutes television news anchor Stevie McNeal, who mounts her own investigation, thus introducing a meaty subplot involving media excesses. As always, Pearson builds suspense incrementally, brilliantly amassing details until his plot reaches critical mass at just the right moment. Several Boldt adventures ago, we rashly labeled Pearson "the best thriller writer alive"; time has done nothing to tarnish the accuracy of that claim. ((Reviewed May 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)