Officer Down - Hardcover

Schwegel, Theresa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312343140 ISBN 13: 9780312343149

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2005

Synopsis

Chicago police officer Samantha Mack's gun killed her partner. But who pulled the trigger?

About this title

About the Author

THERESA SCHWEGEL graduated from Loyola University and earned an MFA in film at Chapman University. Born and raised in Chicago, she now lives in L.A. This is her first novel.

From the Inside Flap

In this powerful debut, police officer Samantha Mack is in trouble: Knocked unconscious during an impromptu sting, she woke up in the hospital to the news that her partner had been shot and killed. With her gun. She remembers firing her gun at the perp until it was empty, but there's no evidence that anyone else was even at the scene, alive or dead.
The department wants to call it accidental and sweep it under the rug, but Sam wants the truth. The only two men who can help are Homicide Detective Mason Imes, also her married lover, and Alex O’Connor, from Internal Affairs. But can Sam trust either of them? And will she be able to clear her name before whoever killed Fred comes back for her?
OFFICER DOWN is a rollercoaster of a crime novel, where up is down and friends might be enemies, and where you have to look out for yourself, because no one else will.

Reviews

Schwegel's instantly engrossing debut crime novel begins with the bungled bust of child molester Marko Trovic: after Samantha "Smack" Mack, a chain-smoking, hard-drinking Chicago police officer, and her partner and ex-lover, Fred, storm a pitch-dark tenement house, Smack wakes later with a nasty concussion, but Fred, shot during the attempted arrest, never does. Police officials decree that Smack's "friendly fire" killed Fred, but she's sure there were others in the room with them that night. Reeling from her concussion, Smack is given administrative leave, but offered little support (or hope of commitment) from her married lover, detective Mason Imes. A determined Smack realizes busting Trovic will be her problem alone: a meddling Internal Affairs operative harasses her, the Sarge threatens to confiscate her badge and Mason says they're going to close the case. Persistence and detective work fueled by righteous rage lead Smack to a guilty informant and an elaborate drug ring supervised by an ever expanding cast of suspects, some much closer to her than she ever imagined. Smack's voice is rough and real, conveying both her tough cookie persona and the authentic emotions behind her street face. Schwegel's sympathetic protagonist and fast-paced action turns out an impressive, gripping first novel. (Sept.)
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This debut mystery has a first-person female cop narrator who is neither an armored truck of toughness nor a paper-thin facade shielding a dump truck of vulnerability--too often the either-or into which so many fictional women cops fall. The narrator, a North Side Chicago cop named Samantha Mack, comes across like a real, nonwhiny, funny person. It's not that Mack doesn't have baggage--she must go on patrol with her ex-partner, who deserted her to get married, for one thing--but the backstory never overwhelms the character. After Mack and her estranged partner get shot at in an apartment sting, Mack wakes up in the hospital to learn that the old partner is dead from gunshot wounds and that the cartridges came from her own gun. The rest of this absorbing quest novel comprises Mack's attempts to buck the police bureaucracy and get to the bottom of the murder. Credible cop background and evocative Chicago scenes add to the pleasures of this memorable first novel. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312343140
• ISBN 13: 9780312343149
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288