Killing Frost

Starred review from March 30, 2015
In the 11th and perhaps final Deets Shanahan mystery (after 2011’s Bullet Beach), Shamus Award–finalist Tierney brings the career of his Indianapolis PI to an elegiac close. Retired and reeling from two recent brain cancer operations at age 72, Shanahan nevertheless accepts an enigmatic client, Alexandra Fournier—only to have her drop dead, shot by a professional sniper, on his doorstep. Rehired by the victim’s sister to discover the reasons Alexandra wanted to hire him in the first place, Shanahan slogs through pain, seizures, medication fog, and ominous encounters with various baddies, including a crooked cop, a slimy defense attorney, and Alexandra’s chiseling brother, but the book’s real appeal is Shanahan’s gruff, dogged devotion to his much younger girlfriend, Maureen. Maureen keeps this old, broken-down detective going with a mixture of tough love, canny professional assistance, and gritty determination. This entry is a tribute to human decency and one man’s refusal to give up in the face of age and inevitable physical deterioration.

March 1, 2015
Tierney celebrates the 25th anniversary of Indianapolis shamus Deets Shanahan's debut with an autumnal 11th case whose subject is its biggest mystery.There's really no reason why Deets (Bullet Beach, 2011, etc.) should still be working. He's had surgery to remove a brain tumor; his left hand and arm are all but useless; and he's been having more seizures than any self-respecting PI can take. So, he's not exactly eager to meet with Alexandra Fournier, founder of Second Chance Community and head of a civilian task force for police oversight. But he's promised her sister, former Indiana Attorney General Jennifer Bailey, so he dutifully waits in his window, and that's where he's standing when he sees his aspiring client get shot to death just after she pulls into his driveway. Now that Ms. Fournier's never going to get the chance to tell him what she wanted to consult him about, her sister hires him to find out. In a trice Deets is up to his ears in suspects and motives. His late client had evidently just separated Tyrus Investments, whatever that is, from the rest of her estate and given it to her brother, con man Charles Bailey. She'd been actively pursuing the volatile case of Sgt. Leonard Card, the city cop who killed Second Chance kid Justice King. When Deets goes to her home to see what sorts of paperwork she's left behind, he finds instead the corpse of Nicky Hernandez, King's close friend. It's ironic that even though Deets constantly feels his mortality, everyone around him, even his ladylove, Maureen, seems to be in greater danger. Deets winds up the case in routine but satisfying fashion. The real prize here is the tone, which Tierney keeps expertly hovering between compassionate valediction and civic outrage.