Haunted a James Patterson and James O. Born novel from Little Brown and company 2017, 317 pages
One of the Michael Bennet novels. An Irish Catholic detective with the NYPD takes his former partner, Sandy, up on her offer to take his extensive family on a summer vacation in Maine… but, there’s always a catch. Little does Mike know, this will become a busman’s holiday. And one of the strengths of Patterson’s style is that he knows how to pace a story.
This tightly written adventures starts off with Bennet’s eldest son Shaun arrested for selling drugs. From there Michael tracks down and shoots a young prospective med school student involved with his son. And after this ‘officer involved shooting’ Mike is encouraged to take a vacation. So, with an offer from a former partner to come up and visit, Mike brings the family to Maine. With its quiet streets, it’s respect for its police in the forth of July ceremonies, is pleasant neighborly residents, it just seems so idyllic.
But the grass isn’t always greener as Mike finds out when his former partner asks for his help in finding two missing teenagers. The woods are lovely dark and deep… but they also hold there secrets, and when a shallow grave is discovered, and a shoe from one of the missing teens is found, Mike learns that the scourge of drug dealers he though he left back in the city… well, it’s more pervasive than he thought.
He looked like a cowboy from a 1970s western. Not as dashing as the old-time cowboys, because he had a definite edge to him.
I took an instant dislike to him when we got out of the car and he said, “Howdy. You have ten seconds to stay your business here.”
I had to ask, “what happens after ten seconds?”
“Then somebody’s ass is gonna get kicked.”
I said, “If that’s the way you want it. But I’m on the tired side, so if you want your ass kicked, you’re going to have to come down to me.”
It was gratifying to hear my partner laugh at one of my cracks.