Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Subway Slayings

SERIES:  Memento Mori

AUTHOR:  C.S. Poe

PUBLISHER:  Emporium Press

LENGTH:  274 pages

RELEASE DATE:  October 28, 2022

BLURB:

Detective Everett Larkin of New York City’s Cold Case Squad has been on medical leave since catching the serial killer responsible for the Death Mask Murders. But Larkin hasn’t forgotten the anonymously delivered letter, nor its suggestion, that another memento—another death—is waiting to be found.

Summer brings the grisly discovery of skeletal remains deep in the subway system, but the circumstances resemble one of Larkin’s already open cases, so the elite detective resumes active duty. When a postmortem photograph, akin to those taken during the Victorian Era, is located at the scene, Larkin requests aid from the most qualified man he knows: Detective Ira Doyle of the Forensic Artists Unit.

With an unsolved case that suffered from tunnel vision, and the deconstruction of death portraits, Larkin and Doyle are descending down a rabbit hole as complex as the tunnels beneath Manhattan. And if this investigation wasn’t enough, both detectives are struggling with how to address the growing intimacy between them, because sometimes, love is more grave than murder.

REVIEW:

Cold Case Detective Everett Larkin is finally being released from Medical leave after the dramatic events of the first case that he and Ira Doyle worked on together.  A day in advance of his official return though, he is called to the scene of a recent murder – because there is a note for him at the crime scene.  Specifically to him.  Well that’s not weird at all – especially since the artifact appears on the surface to have no connection to the current John Doe case.  But this being Larkin, the dates coincide with one of his other open cold cases – the Marco Garcia case.

While trying to put the pieces together of the current case and the cold case, Larkin finds a tenuous connection – but one that doesn’t make total sense.  Given Larkin’s ability to hone in on the details, he has an idea that somebody out there knows the connection.  Just as Larkin and Doyle are about to close in, there is another twist and potential victim that may also be able to shed light on the connection.

Despite the long hours of working the cases, the annoying homophobia of some of Larkin’s fellow cold case colleagues and the ongoing stress not only from his HSAM, his impending divorce from his husband Noah and his dependency on Xanax, Larkin discovers more about Ira Doyle.  He has been the only person who has been willing to listen to Everett – not tell him to “move on” or stop talking and “get over” whatever the issue of the moment is.  But he also comes to the realization that somebody has most likely done the same to Ira – particularly after he lost his daughter.  It’s clear that these two have a lot more in common that it appears on the surface.  Ira is also willing to go to the wall for Everett not on professionally but personally.  It’s clear that that they have feelings beyond friendship, but neither is in the best position at the moment to deal with that on top of everything else.

As the case becomes more convoluted and it’s clear how all the various threads are tied together, Larkin and Doyle race against the clock to stop the perpetrators before another murder is committed.  Things get a bit hairy and both men have to call upon reserves they aren’t sure they have in order to make sure they both survive the fallout.  The case has brought up a lot from the past for both men, but they agree that they are going to try to move forward together.  Things are not completely resolved and someone out there is still toying with Detective Larkin.

Whew!  I wasn’t sure how C.S. Poe was going to follow up the first book in this series, but somehow she did and it was just as engaging.  Larkin and Doyle end up working together again after Larkin is pulled into a crime scene by Homicide as there is an artifact literally addressed to him.  What follows is a winding twisting path of death culture, perversions too dark to even think about and the scary underground world of at risk youth that are sitting targets for the psychopaths who prey on them to feed the desires of the depraved.  I cannot imagine the nightmares the author must have had researching this!  As the cases are intertwined and Larkin goes about pulling the pieces together, more of Doyle’s past is revealed.  Larkin realizes he really doesn’t know a lot of Doyle’s life before he lost his daughter.  Interviewing witnesses and researching artifacts presents a lot more evidence to Larkin that Doyle’s sunshiny face is something that he’s obviously worked very hard at and is covering a lot of pain under the surface.  He feels guilty that he hasn’t paid enough attention and has missed the signs.  This part of the story was particularly heartbreaking and enlightening.  It’s clear that whatever he’s gone through has made Doyle incredibly understanding and empathetic to Larkin.  Whether it’s addiction, anxiety, grief, fear, he’s been there and he doesn’t want to add to Larkin’s pain and anxiety.  I wanted to hug Ira Doyle more than once in this story!  He’s an unbelievably good man.  I want to see both of these guys happy, but I know it’ll take a lot of time – so I hope we get to read about them for some time to come.

This series is riveting.  I learn something new in each book – some of it a little bit stomach-turning 😉  This is a HFN book with more promised to come since there are unresolved issues and an obvious threat to Larkin still out there.  Highly recommended and I’m sure will be on my best of the year list.

RATING:

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