Action, Mystery, Law and Order. Take Your Pick

I read three or four novels a week. I like stories about lawyers and judges like those from Lisa Scottoline. I like action/adventure like those from the pen of the late Robert Ludlum I like detective novels like James Patterson sometimes writes in his Alex Cross series or the books from Stuart Woods. I like a good mystery with lots of twists and turns, multiple suspects, and maybe even a second mystery intertwined like Andrew M. Greeley did in his “Irish” series. I like a little humor and some romance in any novel. I like a protagonist I can identify with so they are usually male and written by men.

Unfortunately even my fairly large stable of active writers can’t keep up with my novel consumption. So I picked up a paperback by Tami Hoag, an author previously unread by me. The novel is “Prior Bad Acts”. How was I to know that all of the characteristics listed in the first paragraph would fill the pages of this novel? Coupled with a flair for character development and a sense of humor, “Prior Bad Acts” gave me a page-turning dose of everything that makes my fiction reading enjoyable.

Tami Hoag is able to draw word pictures with the best of the writers. She is able to make her characters believable and keeps them in character throughout the story. Her heroes and heroines are people you would like to know and associate with. Her “bad guys” feel bad and you know you would not want to be alone if you came across them. Plot and character development come in small, manageable doses as she pulls us from page to page. Although she shifts point of view it flows rather than jar your senses.

Prior Bad Acts

It is hard to clearly classify this novel as to its genre. In a large sense it is a mystery with multiple twists and turns, a wealth of suspects, and even two parallel mysteries which may - or may not - be connected. Nearly as pervasive throughout this fast-paced plot is the action/adventure sense. You can place yourself with Sam Kovac, a hardened Minneapolis police detective or with his partner Nikki Liska, the tough as nails girl cop. You can even find your empathies with Judge Carey Moore, a victim - or maybe the cause of all the current trouble.

It is a mystery of the finest order. Suspects abound and many people, including the detectives, have their own strong ideas of “whodunit.” As the story line develops additional clues are given that can direct – or misdirect – both the reader and the characters. All the necessary clues are there for you the reader, if you are perceptive enough to read them well.

It is a story of good and evil, right and wrong. The grisly deaths that occurred before this story begins evokes echoes of James Patterson in his Alex Cross series. The good judge and her not so nice husband have a sweet five-year-old daughter that adds to their tension and to Kovacs problems as well. The evil is on the streets following an attack on the judge and an escape of the man held for the prior gruesome crimes. Good is also on the street (but that good will also be considered evil by many readers) in the form of the police detective who hunted down the depraved killer now loose again.

The survivors of the gruesome murders, a father and son, come under the attentions of Nikki. There is also some romantic tension between Nikki and Alex to complicate the case. Luckily the cops are funny and give a little lightness when the plot darkens.

There are really three endings to this novel. Two can be predicted by the perceptive reader and the other is left to you to flesh out. As in any good mystery, the loose ends are wrapped properly and only a little is left to wonder about. From the first page, this book will grab you and will pull you forward from one adventure to another, from one plot twist to the next. I suggest you try to read this when you are not expecting multiple interruptions as those interruptions will not be welcome.

This is my first Tami Hoag novel. It will not be my last.