Shadows Still Remain by Peter De Jonge

Peter de Jonge has co-authored three books with James Patterson, but the voice and tone of this, his first solo novel, is very different from the usual Patterson. The protagonist, Darlene O'Hara, is a stand-out character, hard-nosed, insightful, and easy to like.

O'Hara is a tough New York cop, a 36-year-old single mom whose wild teen years translated into motherhood at seventeen. She's still wild, at least a little, and although she now regrets naming her son Axl Rose after the lead singer in the heavy-metal band Guns N' Roses, she continues to rock out whenever possible.

O'Hara and her partner don't normally do Homicide, but when a body is found on their latest missing persons case, they're allowed to keep working it for the first 72 hours. In that time, O'Hara learns enough to become obsessed; the victim, Francesca Pena, is a slums-to-Ivy League success story, whose father died on the cusp of her adolescence just like O'Hara's did. Like O'Hara, Pena went into a downward spiral after the loss: while O'Hara's life turned around after the birth of her son, Pena ended up in a last-chance camp for juvenile delinquents, which motivated her mother to move her away from the projects. Pena made her opportunities count, and rose into the kind of upper-class life O'Hara never tried to reach for; but her efforts ended horribly. O'Hara can't leave it alone, and in the end, her determination to find the truth of Pena's life teaches her more than she wanted to know. I was especially impressed by the end of the book; I don't want to give anything away, but the book ended on a strong note that stayed with me.

If you're interested in a complex, slightly hard-boiled, intense and insightful mystery, check out Shadows Still Remain in our catalog.