THE DEEP DARK DESCENDING

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Nonfiction
Cold fury

THE DEEP DARK DESCENDING

By Allen Eskens

272 pp. Seventh Street Books

Reviewed by Eric Petersen

Mystery writer Allen Eskens is back with the latest entry in his series of mysteries featuring Minneapolis homicide detective Max Rupert. It picks up right where the previous book, The Heavens May Fall (also reviewed on this site) left off.

The end of that novel featured a shocking revelation about the fate of Max Rupert’s wife Jenni, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident – the only homicide that Max was never able to solve. It was a hit-and-run all right, but it was no accident.

The Deep Dark Descendingopens on a subzero winter day, on a frozen lake located between Minnesota and the Canadian border – and Max Rupert about to murder an unconscious, unnamed man whom he’s kidnapped and dragged out onto the lake.

This is the man whom Max believes murdered his wife, and payback is a bitch. But as he prepares to take revenge, the honorable cop hears a voice in his head, the haunting voice of his father’s ex-girlfriend Nancy, the only mother Max and his younger brother Alexander ever knew:

Is this what you’ve become, Max Rupert? Is this who you are?

The story of how Max ended up at this dark point unfolds in flashbacks, beginning with a brief recap of the previous novel. A shocking murder case involving a prominent defense attorney accused of killing his own wife ended the close friendship of Max Rupert and lawyer / law professor Boady Sanden.

Rupert believed passionately that the defendant was guilty, while Sanden believed passionately that his client was innocent. Both men were shocked when the defendant, Ben Pruitt, was exposed as a cold blooded, psychopathic killer.

Before committing suicide, Pruitt revealed that Rupert’s wife’s death was not the simple case of a careless driver panicking and fleeing the scene after hitting her with his car – it was a carefully planned hit carried out by one of his clients.

A grief-stricken Boady Sanden then paid Max Rupert an unexpected visit, giving him a file stolen from the office of his former client – a file with the name Ray Kroll on it. Inside the file was a compact disc with a recording of Kroll and his accomplice planning the hit on Max’s wife, Jenni.

They were ordered by their unnamed boss to kill Jenni because in the course of her job as a hospital social worker, “She stumbled onto something she shouldn’t have. If we don’t move fast, we’re all fucked.”

Max knows that this incriminating evidence is inadmissible in court (and could cost Boady Sanden his license to practice law and his freedom), but he doesn’t care. All he cares about is tracking down his wife’s killers and making them pay. So he does what he does best – he investigates a homicide.

Meanwhile, he and his partner Niki have another murder case on their hands – the case of a woman found dead in a fiery car accident – in a car belonging to Dennis Orton, the Mayor’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Also an aspiring politician, Orton is being treated in the burn unit for severe burns.

It doesn’t take long for Max to deduce that Orton murdered his girlfriend and nearly killed himself when he tried to burn the evidence. Orton cracks, admits his guilt, and confesses to another crime – helping Max’s corrupt superior Emil Briggs frame an innocent woman for a drunk-driving accident that Briggs caused.

Now free of a huge thorn in his side, Max pursues the only lead he has in his wife’s murder. Right before she died, Jenni was called in when a teenage Belorussian girl named Zoya was brought into the hospital. The girl had been raped, brutally beaten, and thrown through a glass window.

Zoya spoke no English, but through an interpreter she revealed that her pimp, whose brand she wore on her flesh, was going to kill her when he learned that she talked to Jenni. That’s just what happened. Unfortunately, Jenni made the mistake of trying to bring a monster to justice, and paid the ultimate price.

Now, in the frigid Minnesota winter, in the middle of a frozen lake, Max Rupert is holding court. He’s going to bring a monster that the system can’t touch to justice. But first, he’ll give the defendant an opportunity to plead guilty – to scream out his confession and beg for mercy.

Max Rupert will be the judge and the jury, but even with a heart full of rage and despair, can he bring himself to become the executioner?

The Deep Dark Descending is Allen Eskens at his best – a taut, harrowing psychological thriller that’s not to be missed! Highly recommended to mystery fans!

Eric Petersen is an administrator and blogmaster for the Internet Writing Workshop, an international, online writer’s group run out of Penn State University. You can reach him by e-mail at EricPetersen1970@hotmail.com