She Treads Softly: The 4th Man

Sunday, December 25, 2016

The 4th Man

The 4th Man by Lisa Gardner

Penguin Publishing Group: 12/27/16
eBook review copy; 76 pages
ISBN-13: 9781101986325

The 4th Man by Lisa Gardner is a highly recommended police procedural short story featuring FBI Profiler Pierce Quincy, Officer Rainie Conner, and Detective D. D. Warren.

Quincy and Rainie agree to look at a cold case for D. D. Warren and see if they can build a case against one of the three suspects. Five years ago a young college student was found strangled in the stairwell of a college library. There were no signs of a sexual assault, no physical evidence left behind, and no witnesses. The only obvious thing missing were her white sneakers. There are three definite suspects, her boyfriend and two security guards, but is there an unidentified fourth man?

Gardner gives us a well-written short story here with favorite characters. Included in the eBook short is an excerpt from her new novel, Right Behind You. The only drawback is that this is a very short story, but it is satisfying to follow the clues as they reach a resolution to the cold case.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the Penguin Publishing Group.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.