Enemy in Blue, Debut Novel of Derek Blass

On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 5.

I would have liked to have seen more character development. From the brief character sketches provided there seemed to be several characters (perhaps too many characters was part of the problem) that I would have liked.  Unfortunately the plot moved at such a breakneck pace I never felt as if I had gotten to know any of the main characters or the motivations for their behavior.

The plot was so full of holes you could drive a semi through it. While I don't doubt that a police officer would shoot an unarmed man  laying on a couch (after all they have no problem slaughtering family pets), I sincerely doubt he would do so in front of a cameraman and a disapproving cop. Police brutality occurs in the dark and around those who either tacitly approve of the misbehavior or who will not question it. The fact the officer was not relieved of duty and asked to hand in his gun after the shooting until an internal investigation could be completed (which is standard operating procedure) underscores the unreality of the situation. Max's (the cameraman) behavior is also unrealistic. Realizing that Shaver will come after him for the tape he physically hands it over to someone else. Now Max was clever enough to email the file to himself so why wouldn't he email it to Sandra. One also has to question why Max didn't email the file  to as many news agencies as possible and upload it to You Tube. After all once the file was out in the public domain it would have been impossible for Shaver to suppress it and killing Max would have been even more stupid then it was.

Blass shows promise as a writer. Hopefully on the next book he will take the time to develop his characters more fully so the reader feels like he/she knows them and will do more research so the plot will be more plausible. The ending leads me to believe that Cruz with Sandra by his side will be investigating "the list" implicating Chief Edwin Colgate. Perhaps some of the other characters from this book will also be playing a role. I really hope I get the chance to know them better.

This is one of the first books I read on my Kindle Fire so that may have played into the low marks I gave the book. I am still not completely comfortable reading e-books and prefer a hard copy. In the interest of full disclosure Derek Blass provided me with a free copy of the book for review.