INCENTIVE FOR DEATH

4 stars out of 5

Two things struck me after I finished this book: First, I really enjoyed Washington, D.C., homicide investigators McDermott "Mac" Burke and Oliver Shaw (just don't call him Ollie) and hope to read more books with them as the stars of the show. And second, if the repetitive parts of this one were weed-whacked, the book probably would be half as long. By the end, it got very tiring to have the detectives regurgitate every detail of the case they're working on to every new character they meet.

That out of the way, though, I found the plot unique and timely. While I'm aware of the practice of selling large life insurance policies at a discount to get cash now (somewhat akin to reverse mortgages), the possibility of hastening the deaths of the sellers to boost profits never occurred to me.

But apparently it did to the company in question here, although it took a while for Mac and Oliver to suspect what was going on. When a local hot-shot lawyer is found dead in his office, it appeared to have happened by natural causes. A closer look, though, reveals a tiny prick on the man's neck - and the medical examiner (an astute one, to be sure) suspects he'd been injected with horse tranquilizer succinylcholine, once famously though erroneously touted as a "cure" for COVID-19, which dissipates in the body too fast to be identified after death.

That prompts Mac and Oliver to look a bit deeper, and that's when they learn the victim recently sold a substantial life insurance policy to one of the so-called viatical companies. That, in turn, leads to the discovery that this dead guy is neither the first nor only victim who met an untimely death shortly after selling a policy. But who's behind it all? Ah, therein is the substance of the rest of the book. Mac and Oliver get a ton of expert assistance from co-workers and long-time friends; even Mac's ex-wife Maggie Hampton, who actually still lives with him from time to time and may or may not be working for a clandestine U.S. government agency, gets into the act.

But time is of the essence; once they learn about the other victims, they realize that unless the killer(s) are stopped, more are sure to follow. Whether they prevent that from happening - and how - is up to other readers to find out; I'm not gonna tell. Now, I'm looking forward to reading another installment - and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review this one.

Incentive for Death by James Spoonhour (Oceanview Publishing, October 2023); 417 pp.