All Sales Fatal - Laura DiSilverio

All Sales Fatal

A Mall Cop Mystery
Laura DiSilverio
Berkley Prime Crime
 
Mystery
 
EJ Ferris wants to get back to police work.  She was military police for almost ten years until an IED in Afghanistan blew apart her knee.  This injury is going to make it more than difficult for her to pass any police department physical.  For now, she’s working as a mall cop while sending out resumes.
 
Arriving one morning for her shift, EJ finds the dead body of a teenager outside one of the mall entrances.  Usually, there would be security camera footage of the crime, but thanks to her boss’ lax attitude and mall budget cuts, an entire wing of the mall has been without cameras for weeks.  This does not please EJ or the local cops – who tell her to butt out of an official police investigation.  Naturally, that’s not going to happen, especially when EJ’s boss becomes a homicide victim.
 
This is the second installment in this series, following DIE BUYING.  The first entry was significantly stronger in terms of characterizations and plotlines.  This one relies a little too heavily for my taste on stock characters and coincidental discoveries.  I do have to say that the plotline, which eventually does tie everything together in the end, is unusual.  And, as in the first book, I completely enjoyed EJ’s Grandpa Atherton, who has retired from the CIA, but likes to keep his tradecraft skills up to snuff.  There’s a bit of a cliffhanger for EJ personally at the end of this one, since she seems to have hit a crossroads in her professional life.

Rating: 6
May 2012
ISBN# 978-0-425-24803-4 (paperback)