The Betrayers
by James Patrick Hunt
Published by St. Martin's Minotaur
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Sharon Broom
On a late fall evening, two police officers are machine-gunned down on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. The questions asked by the officers on the scene were: Did the cops pull over the wrong person, or did one or both of them have a connection to something else?
Lieutenant George Hastings 'catches' the case. Because his partner is in the hospital, he's paired with the well-connected detective Bobby Cain. The two police officers focus on the slain officers' lives to determine if one or both was involved with something that got them killed.
Slain officer Chris Hummel did a year-long stint undercover and his work contributed to the arrest and conviction of a big-time career criminal. Cain is not sure that Lt. Hastings' take on the case is correct, but he reluctantly follows Hastings orders. The trail begins to lead, not to Hummel's work as an undercover narcotics officer, but to the women in his life.
The Betrayers is filled with good cops, a bad cop, evil mobsters, an assassin and the women these men are involved with personally. The plot is fascinating and it's a fast read. My criticism is that there are so many characters that it's difficult to get to know them very well. Some of them show up and then disappear. And those that stick around, even the bad ones, weren't well-developed enough to really care about them or dislike them.
Armchair Interviews says: This is a good read, but based on the plot, could have been much better.