Enemy in Blue by Derek Blass

Title: Enemy in Blue
Author: Derek Blass
Available from: Amazon

The good: This book starts out with nonstop action that’s tense and thrilling. The characters are well developed. With the exception of a few errors, it’s well written.

The bad: This book should’ve ended long before it did. There are really two stories here: the police killing a man and the chase for the video evidence, and then Sgt. Shaver’s trial for killing a man. The first half moves quickly and is a can’t-put-it-down read. The second half crawls and opens the door for a fatal error that spoiled the rest of the book for me. I hate fatal errors.

So what is the fatal error? I read and re-read and bookmarked just to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting. In the trial of Sgt. Shaver, he admits on the stand that he was the one who shot and killed Rodriguez.

I don’t remember the actual number of bullets I fired, but I do know that three of those shots hit the target.

OK, so by his own admission in court testimony, there’s no doubt that Shaver shot and killed Rodriguez – but that’s completely ignored by the district attorney in his cross examination, and by the jury in its deliberation. In cross examination, the district attorney even questions Shaver about his assertion that Officer Martinez, another member of Shaver’s team, shot and killed Rodriguez, and Shaver continues to assert that Martinez killed Rodriguez even though he admitted himself that he fired the bullets that “hit the target.” To make matters worse, the jury deliberates and can’t decide if Shaver killed Rodriguez, or if Martinez might have been the one who killed him.

As far as I was concerned, the rest of the book was just an excuse and it ended in a disappointing fizzle.

I would’ve really liked this book if it had ended before Shaver’s trial.