Review: Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon

Publish Date: July 1, 2014
Publisher: Crown
Series: Dave Gurney #4

Synopsis: In John Verdon’s most sensationally twisty novel yet, ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney brings his analytical brilliance to a shocking murder that couldn’t have been committed the way the police say it was.

The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPD’s top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband -- who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mother’s funeral. 

Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.

Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career – one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.

And the identity of the villain at the mystery’s center turns out to be the biggest shock of all.

Review: I have never read a book by John Verdon, so even though this book is the 4th in a series, I didn't read the first three. And I didn't feel like this took away from the story at all or that it would have changed my opinion any. There were references to a prior case of Dave Gurney's, which probably was in an earlier book. I would be interested in picking up an earlier book just to compare story lines. 

I was torn on this book. It was overly wordy for my liking and I felt as though this took away from the mystery and the story line. Crime mysteries are most interesting for me when the story really keeps the reader on their toes, really gets into the details of the case and has a lot of twists and turns. I found the truth and the identity of the "villain" to be less than shocking as described in the synopsis. The last 25 pages were the best part of the book. 

*I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.