DELUSIONAL

4 stars out of 5

I read most of the books in this series for quite some time (this is the 18^th), but somewhere around a decade ago I gave up. Truth? At that point, NYPD detective Michael Bennett was a widower with 10 adopted kids. He and his uber-competent nanny, Mary Catherine, were fighting the urge to get it on, hesitating mostly for religious (Catholic) reasons. And at that point not-so-religious me had enough of the “will they or won’t they” nonsense  got turned off.

Still, I loved the stories, so when I had the opportunity to request a pre-release copy from NetGalley, I went for it. And now that Michael and Mary Catherine are legally wed (and I assume blissfully so, since she’s pregnant with their first child), and from my perspective, all’s right with the world once again.

This one begins as Michael and his partner, Rob Trilling, are at the scene of a bombing. It’s the second such event recently – the other involving the death of a fellow police officer - so concern is high that a serial bomber may be on the loose similar to the real-life Ted Kacznski (a.k.a. Unibomber of the 1990s). The only real clues are that the bomber apparently had two missing fingers and the recent theft of explosives at a New Jersey arsenal.

As the investigation gets under way, partner Rob has to deal with a potentially serious family matter; his brother, who owns a car dealership in Bozeman, Montana, is facing threats because he refuses to sell the property to a developer who won’t take no for an answer. Michael tells Rob to go West; when that situation takes a turn for the worse, Michael heads that direction as well to lend a helping hand.

Essentially, the story moves between the two cases, with suspension building over which will result in the greatest tragedy. The Montana developer, it seems, will stop at nothing even murder - to get what he wants; the bomb crew, who will stop at nothing to make the world a better place (not even mass murder). Caught in between are two partners who are doing their best to make sure none of those murders actually happen – especially their own.

All told, it’s another riveting adventure and one that held my attention throughout. Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to get in on the action once again by way of a pre-release copy. Good job!

Patterson and James O. Born (Little, Brown & Co., August 2026); 368 pp.