{"id":292,"date":"2016-09-26T21:58:35","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/?p=292"},"modified":"2016-09-26T21:58:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:58:35","slug":"take-a-trip-with-mr-finn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/take-a-trip-with-mr-finn\/","title":{"rendered":"Take a Trip with Mr. Finn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the-prison-guards-son\"<\/a>The Prison Guard’s Son<\/a><\/em>
\nTrace Conger<\/a>
\nPaperback $12.95
\nEbook $4.99<\/p>\n

I’d like to thank Trace Conger for sending me the review copy of The Prison Guard’s Son<\/em>.\u00a0 I’ve been hooked on the Mr. Finn novels since I read the first one.\u00a0 That was The Shadow Broke<\/a>r<\/em>, which won a Shamus Award.\u00a0 (Read my review here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

While the first two books dealt with aspects of unlicensed PI Finn Harding’s family, this one takes him a bit farther afield.\u00a0 Set approximately one year after the events in Scar Tissue <\/a>(review here<\/a>), Finn is hired by a retired prison guard whose eight year old son was murdered two twelve year olds after they took him\u00a0 from a mall.\u00a0 Although tried as adults, the killers were sent to a juvenile facility and released when they turned 18.\u00a0 For some reason they were put in the federal witness protection program.<\/p>\n

Now the grieving father wants Finn to find them.\u00a0 Not because he intends to offer forgiveness, either.\u00a0 Just the opposite.\u00a0 He wants to kill them.<\/p>\n

Although he has his reservations, Finn agrees to take the case.\u00a0 He’s a father, after all, and he wants to help a grieving father.<\/p>\n

Finn doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.\u00a0 While there really weren’t too many twists and surprises in The Prison Guard’s Son<\/em>, it’s something of a nailbiter.\u00a0 Finn goes about finding the two men.\u00a0 Once he does, he has to make a decision about what to do with the information.\u00a0 Conger does a great job in showing just how difficult it is to disappear.<\/p>\n

This was an intense book.\u00a0 The plot has a lot of resemblance to the James Bulger<\/a> case back in England in 1993.\u00a0 I was also reminded somewhat of the Leopold and Loeb<\/a> case from the 1920s.\u00a0 If you’re a parent, there will probably be passages that get under your skin.\u00a0 A child abduction is every parent’s fear.<\/p>\n

I could have finished the book two nights ago, while my son was enjoying himself at the local trampoline park.\u00a0 I chose not to because I wanted to be able get some sleep that night, and I was afraid I would be too wound up.<\/p>\n

In many ways The Prison Guard’s Son<\/em> is Trace Conger’s best novel so far.\u00a0 He’s got a firm understanding of not just Finn’s character, but of the supporting cast, both recurring and those who only show up for one book.\u00a0 He knows how to ratchet up the tension.\u00a0 This will serve him well, as he told me in an email that he’s got a horror novella and a stand-alone suspense novel in the works.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to both of those, as well as more about Finn Harding.<\/p>\n

There seems to be a dearth of the classic private investigator these days.\u00a0 At least at the one remaining retail bookstore where I lived.\u00a0 (That would be B&N; Hastings has closed.)\u00a0 There is a whole section of cozies in the mystery section as well as plenty of British and Scandinavian\u00a0 police procedurals, but there seems to be little in the way of new PI novels.\u00a0 Or maybe I just don’t know which titles to be looking for.\u00a0 The Mr. Finn novels have been a breath of fresh air.\u00a0 Trace Conger is breathing new life into the genre, so check it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prison Guard’s Son Trace Conger Paperback $12.95 Ebook $4.99 I’d like to thank Trace Conger for sending me the review copy of The Prison Guard’s Son.\u00a0 I’ve been hooked on the Mr. Finn novels since I read the first one.\u00a0 That was The Shadow Broker, which won a Shamus Award.\u00a0 (Read my review here.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[70,93,69],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-private-investigators","tag-mr-finn","tag-private-investigators","tag-trace-conger"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P58L-4I","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/gumshoes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}