Under color of law

One night in 2010, Black LAPD police officer Trevor "Finn" Finnegan, the narrator of this gripping crime novel from Clark (The Furious Way), wants to call for medical assistance for a young Black man his training officer has beaten, probably fatally, after a pursuit, but instead Finn follows an order to leave the scene. Four years later, racial tensions are still high in the department, and Finn may be the most hated detective in his division, because his fellow officers believe his promotion was fast-tracked unfairly. When the naked body of a Black man is found on a hiking trail, the victim turns out to be Brandon Soledad, a recruit in his third month at the police academy. Finn doesn't relish being put in charge of the case, because mishandling it might irrevocably damage his career. In his desperate effort to find Brandon's killer, Finn takes drastic steps that could get him suspended or fired from the department. The tension rises when the killer learns that Finn may be getting close to solving the case, and a love interest adds spice. This is a smart, suspenseful police procedural with a timely plot. Agent: Gina Panettieri, Talcott Notch Literary. (Oct.)

Clark's (The Furious Way) new mystery is inspired by his time in the Los Angeles Police Department. He depicts an LAPD that's rife with racism, fear, lies, and corruption. Protagonist Trevor Finnegan was familiar with LAPD culture when he entered the police academy, having heard the experiences of his father, a Black LAPD officer. As a rookie cop in 2010, Trevor witnessed two senior officers brutally beating a young Black man, then was removed from the scene. He was naive enough to lie about the incident in order to move up the ranks, with hopes of changing the department's culture. Four years later, Trevor (now a detective) is handed a no-win case. The nude corpse of Brandon Soledad, a young Black LAPD recruit, has been found on a hiking trail in the Angeles National Forest. It's not in LA's jurisdiction, but Trevor is assigned to investigate because Brandon was in their academy, and LAPD fears a PR crisis. The young detective knows it's a lie when he's told the case is a career-maker. Upon discovering Brandon's connection to the 2010 beating, Trevor is forced to confront the truth and question his own complicity in LAPD's abuses. How far can one man be pushed? VERDICT Clark's ripped-from-the-headlines police procedural should make readers uncomfortable. It's a frightening, tragic tale.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

The bill comes shockingly due for the serious moral compromises a rookie LAPD detective made to get his plum assignment. Detective Trevor Finnegan is called to an Altadena hiking trail where the body of police recruit Brandon Soledad has been discovered. Like Finn, Brandon was one of the few Black candidates to be accepted into the police academy; now his death has ended his career before it's even begun. Finn decides on the spot that the young man was killed elsewhere and dumped in the wild. The autopsy that confirms his judgment indicates that Brandon was frozen to death. Before Finn can even begin to make a list of likely suspects, he's warned off the case by anonymous threats that almost certainly come from within his own department. Eyed with suspicion by colleagues certain that the fix was in when Finn was elevated to Robbery-Homicide and even by his old school friend Sarada Rao, whose rapist Finn beat within an inch of his life because he felt responsible for leaving her in an unsafe position, Finn is forced to work the case alone. His hard-nosed confrontations with his former training officer, Joey Garcia, and the visibly activist role his father, retired LAPD Sgt. Shaun Finnegan, has taken against the police make every cop Finn meets brush him off or worse, and his rage and guilt don't bode well for his affair with dress designer Tori Krause. The corruption in the force is so widespread, and the hero so deeply flawed, that it's something of a miracle when Clark finally manages to ring down the curtain. Harrowing evidence for Spike Lee's famous claim that everything that happens in America is about race. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.