“Show me your hands!” Alves commanded, ducking behind another tree. He was less than ten yards away now. He put the light on the perp again.

In the artificial cone of yellow light, Alves saw that the figure was wearing a tuxedo.

Stepping from behind the tree, Alves made his way forward. The man stood unnaturally rigid. Not even a flinch as Alves stepped over brush and dry leaves to reach him. The man was ocean frank, like the girl. The scene was familiar. Nothing he had seen himself. But he had heard enough from his old sergeant Wayne Mooney to know what he had just found.

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (JUN 12, 2010)

Raffi Yessayan’s second book, 2 in the Hat, is a somewhat disappointing, but still enjoyable sequel to his first book 8 in the Box. This book takes place 3 years after 8 in the Box and includes many of the same characters with continuing emphasis on Assistant District Attorney Connie Darget and police detectives Angel Alves and Wayne Mooney.

Detective Alves’ daughter accidently finds a dead girl in the playground where she and other members of the Mitey Mites football team that her father coaches are running a last lap after practice. Alves quickly runs to the scene and finds not only the dead girl but a dead man posed in a way that is similar to an old unsolved Prom Night Killer case his former sergeant Wayne Mooney told him about from ten years ago. Because of his prior experience, Mooney is reinstated to the homicide division to work with Alves to see if the Prom Night killer has returned or if this is the work of a copycat killer.

While Mooney and Alves are tied up on the Prom Night killer, Detective Ray Figgs is looking into neighborhood killings that appear to be gang related. Figgs has struggled in his job lately being more interested in drinking than solving murders, but something about these cases is keeping him sober enough to make him return to his former form.

Assistant District Connie Darget is always around to help the detectives with both cases and decides to look into the past Prom Night killings and provide his thoughts about the killer to the detectives. Detective Alves finds Darget more of a pain than a help as he ignores his ideas. Alves also becomes distracted by the three year old Blood Bath Killer case. He begins to think that maybe Mitch Beaulieu who they thought was the killer, and who had committed suicide before anyone could talk to him, may not have been the Blood Bath killer as he begins to suspect someone else who worked closely with Mitch Beaulieu.

The tension builds throughout the book as the detectives all work to find the killers while the killers work to keep the detectives from finding them. Yessayan includes a few twists along the way to keep the suspense building.

As in the first book, Yessayan uses a mix of third person perspectives to show the thoughts of Connie Darget, the homicide police detectives as well as a serial killer that keeps the police busy looking for clues. Of course, that is part of the problem I had with this book as much of the story seems familiar from the first book and not just because the characters are the same. Detective Alves is still having difficulty balancing work with family as he chases clues to a serial killer, Detective Sergeant Mooney keeps the pressure on Alves to work the case instead of going home to his family, Connie is still an attorney usually working to his own benefit and, of course, a serial killer is on the loose.

I’m not sure if reading the first book is beneficial or not to reading this book. Although Yessayan provides enough detail about the characters and back story that this book can be read as a standalone, he does keep some things from the reader that would be known if the first book had been read. However, I’m thinking that knowledge was not necessarily a good thing as some of the suspense that builds in the first book and again in the second book for a new reader was not as suspenseful to me since I knew something about a key character that was not provided to readers of only the second book. This may be another reason I was somewhat disappointed with this book.

Yessayan follows the same style as in his first book having many chapters (109 total) with each chapter in the perspective of one of the main characters. No doubt, James Patterson is one of the people who influenced his writing style. I actually enjoy this short chapter approach especially if I just have a few minutes to read a chapter. The change in perspective is done effectively as I never was confused about which character was the focus of that chapter.

One thing that is missing from this book that I enjoyed in the first book is more on the legal aspects and the lives and cases of the assistant district attorneys. This book is much more of a police procedural / serial killer suspense book and less of a legal thriller novel. With Yessayan’s own experience as a Boston district attorney, he was certainly able to bring much to these parts of the book and with less about legal issues and lawyers, he’s writing in areas that I’m sure he is familiar, but likely lacks the same in-depth experience that makes the story more realistic. Hopefully, he’ll bring more of his legal experiences to his future books and leave the serial killer novels to others.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 37 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 13, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Raffi Yessayan
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: 8 in the Box

Bibliography:

• 8 in the Box (June 2008)
• 2 in the Hat (April 2010)

“She was alive when she was put in the bath?”
“I think so. There are other ways to drain a person of her blood, but the easiest way is to have the heart do the pumping for you.”
“So he puts his victims in the bathtub and slits their wrists. Are they incapacitated in any way? Unconscious maybe?”
“No trace of drugs in the blood.”
“So maybe he hits them over the head and knocks them out. Who knows? But whoever lost that blood is definitely dead, right?”
“Angel, I can’t say so with any scientific certainty, and this isn’t my specialty, but if that was Susan McCarthy’s blood in the tub, my guess is she’s dead.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (JUN 12, 2010)

New author Raffi Yessayan’s first book 8 in the Box is a solid legal thriller based in Boston, Massachusetts that is also a well done and enjoyable police procedural. With a mix of perspectives, Yessayan shows the thoughts of the homicide police detectives and the district attorneys as well as a serial killer that keeps the police busy looking for clues.

The book focuses on several young assistant district attorneys, with the lead being Conrad “Connie” Darget, somewhat more experienced than the other attorneys and one that is respected for his success by both his male and female co-workers. Connie also develops good relationships with the police and works to earn their trust when he visits crime scenes. This also helps him in assuring the cases he tries will be managed correctly in the field so he will be more successful in winning his cases.

Connie gets to work with two main homicide detectives, new detective Angel Alves and the more experienced Sergeant Detective Wayne Mooney. The two detectives certainly are challenged to solve what become a series of missing people whose blood is left behind in a bathtub of water. The “Blood Bath Killer” is careful to not leave any significant clues as the two detectives work tirelessly to solve the murder. Mooney’s continual press on the young Alves does lead to some stress in Alves’ family as the added hours often leave him unable to participate in family functions his wife Marcy plans. The story includes several twists along the way as the killer confuses the detectives with no clues and a mix of victims.

Although this book is mostly about finding the serial killer, Yessayan does spend a fair amount of time building the back story of the various characters, with an emphasis on the attorneys. This makes sense since Yessayan spent 11 years as a Boston assistant district attorney and he is obviously comfortable writing about these experiences even if fictional. Yessayan spends the most time on Connie Darget and his cases along with his relationship with law student Andi Norton. Andi spends too much time on the cases Connie gives her and this only leads to problems with her law classes. Other attorneys include Mitch Beaulieu, a sensitive African-American attorney who struggles with the many cases against African-Americans, and Nick Costa who is more interested in impressing women then in being prepared for his cases which he never seems to win.

Yessayan’s style in the book is to have many chapters (85 total) with each chapter in the perspective of one of several main characters. Since the book doesn’t really feature one main character, many different perspectives are presented; however, Yessayan does a very good job of making it clear from whose perspective that chapter is in and at no time did I feel confused. Although I wasn’t sure about this approach at the beginning, I think it worked and allowed to get into the minds of the key characters, including the killer Richter, thus allowing the reader to understand what was going on in the book. Of course, although you do learn more from being in the mind of the killer, Yessayan does not give the reader too much information too soon.

I’ve just started Raffi Yessayan’s second book, 2 in the Hat, a sequel to 8 in the Box. Many of the same characters are back and the same mix of perspectives with short chapters is in this book. I’m not sure I agree with the numbering approach of the book titles, especially since the numbers are not in order. I had to keep reminding myself to read the “8” book before the “2” book. I’d suggest Yessayan use a different approach if he continues the series since this will be nearly impossible to keep straight after a few books in the series.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 24 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books (March 23, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Raffi Yessayan
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: 2 in the Hat

Bibliography:

• 8 in the Box (June 2008)
• 2 in the Hat (April 2010)