The Lost Brother

October 2, 1996
In his second novel (after King of a Small World), Bennet spins a raw, gritty, intricate crime story set in seething inner-city Washington, D.C., microcosm of a racially polarized America. The brutal double murder of an interracial couple--African American prosecutor Henry James and his white wife--prompts speculation that the killer was enraged at James's adamant public contention that O.J. Simpson was guilty. The initials of a white supremacist group are scrawled in blood on the Jameses' walls, but the hate group's leader, insisting that he had nothing to do with the murders, hires jaded, cynical PI Kevin Kellogg to solve the case and clear his name. Meanwhile, serial killer Long Ray, the slain prosecutor's sociopathic brother, just released from prison, undertakes his own search for his missing 12-year-old nephew, who may have been kidnapped or killed after witnessing his parents' murders. Ray enlists the shady connections of Khalid, a militant black separatist who preaches hatred of whites, Jews, Asians and Latinos on his weekly TV show, and who hoards "blackmail videotapes" that give him leverage over Washington's (unnamed) corrupt, crack-smoking mayor, its racist police force and a hooker-happy FBI director. Bennet employs a spare, low-key style with dialogue that sometimes conveys information too blatantly. But the lean prose, fast cross-cutting between scenes and a slam-bang climax contribute to a provocative tale that holds up a mirror to the bigotry, hatred, class and race divisions that rankle our society.