Ancient
Laws
A
Bryson Coventry Mystery
Jim
Michael Hansen
Dark
Sky (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-9769243-2-3 (0976924323)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769243-2-6 (9780976924326)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $13.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry tracks a killer to Paris, expecting a dangerous but straightforward hunt. What he doesn't foresee is that he and a strikingly beautiful French detective would be pulled into a deadly game -- a game that would stretch from Paris to Cairo to the Valley of the Kings; a game rooted in ancient tombs, archeological murders and lost treasures; a game that started thousands of years ago but is not over yet.
Review:
Homicide detective Bryson Coventry travels to Paris, where a woman has
been killed in a manner similar to that in one of his unsolved murder
cases in Denver, in Ancient Laws,
the eighth mystery in this series by Jim Michael Hansen.
The case is personal to Coventry, as he had inadvertently revealed the
name of a witness to the crime, a woman that has since gone into
hiding. Imagine his surprise, and horror, when, arriving in Paris, he
discovers the dead woman is the witness, who was living in the city
under an assumed name. He teams up with a French detective, Fallon Le
Rue, with whom he establishes an instant, call it "rapport", and
together they are determined to catch this killer, even if it means
using Fallon as bait.
As is typical of this series, the author not only alternates chapters
between three points of view, but also creates three storylines that
eventually converge. The second point of view and storyline involves
the murder of an archeologist, Remy Lafayette. A mysterious woman who
knew Remy in Egypt, Alexandra Reed, believes he was murdered by someone
looking for a map -- a map to ancient treasure. When Lafayette's niece,
Jade, finds her apartment ransacked, she teams up with Alexandra to
find the map and, in doing so, to identify Remy's killer.
The third point of view is that of a private investigator, Marcel
Durand, hired by a wealthy shipbuilder, Nicholas Ringer, to help Jade
find her uncle's killer.
This all has the potential to be confusing but the author handles it
reasonably well, keeping the chapters relatively short and to the
point, moving the various subplots forward at a brisk pace, even giving
the characters a change of scenery by moving the action from Paris to
Egypt. At times improbable and superficial, and maybe featuring just a
few too many snakes (a metaphor, possibly?), it's all finally linked
together in a logical, reasonable manner.
But the book ends on a somewhat ominous note. With Ancient Laws
the author seems to be signaling a change, possibly a significant
change, to the future direction of the series. The premise for Coventry
being in France in the first place is tenuous, and how he spends his
time there (at the expense of Denver taxpayers) is rather disturbing,
being more interested in, and spending more time lusting after, his
French colleague than his stated purpose of pursuing a killer. Though
the ending is ever so slightly ambiguous in this regard, it's possible
that in the next book in this series (already announced to be Hong Kong Laws),
Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry may not be a Denver homicide
detective any more ... a potentially disappointing development for
readers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Special thanks to Jim Michael Hansen for providing a copy of Ancient Laws for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Ancient Laws? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Night
Laws
Dark Sky (Hardcover), March 2006
ISBN-10: 0-97692430-7 (0976924307)
ISBN-13: 978-0-97692430-2 (9780976924302)
Shadow
Laws
Dark Sky (Hardcover), October 2006
ISBN-10: 0-97692434-X (097692434X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-97692434-0 (9780976924340)
Fatal
Laws
Dark Sky (Hardcover), June 2007
ISBN-10: 0-97692436-6 (0976924366)
ISBN-13: 978-0-97692436-4 (9780976924364)
Deadly
Laws
Dark Sky (Hardcover), October 2007
ISBN-10: 0-97692433-1 (0976924331)
ISBN-13: 978-0-97692433-3 (9780976924333)
Bangkok Laws
Dark Sky (Trade Paperback), March 2008
ISBN-10: 0-9769243-1-5 (0976924315)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769243-1-9 (9780976924319)
Immortal Laws
Dark Sky (Trade Paperback), September 2008
ISBN-10: 0-9769243-5-8 (0976924358)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769243-5-7 (9780976924357)
Voodoo Laws
Dark Sky (Trade Paperback), March 2009
ISBN-10: 0-9769243-7-4 (0976924374)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769243-7-1 (9780976924371)
Ancient Laws
Dark Sky (Trade Paperback), September 2009
ISBN-10: 0-9769243-2-3 (0976924323)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9769243-2-6 (9780976924326)
Omnimystery
keywords for Ancient Laws
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Location(s) referenced: Paris, France, Cairo, Egypt.
