Blind Vigil
by Matt Coyle
Oceanview Publishing
Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date 01 Dec 2020 | Archive Date Not set

What a great book! Thanks to Oceanview Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC. I read it through in one sitting.
I will recommend this to others as well.

5 star

In Blind Vigil, private investigator Rick Cahill is like a cat who’s pushing the limits of his nine lives. Blinded by a gunshot to the face, Rick has had nine long months to consider his past and his future. A future that probably won’t include working as a PI. Restless from months of being housebound, Rick reluctantly agrees to accompany his friend and fellow PI, Moira MacFarlane, to interview his former best friend, Turk, about a new case. Not long after, Turk’s fiancée is murdered, and Turk is arrested. Rick and Turk have had their differences and their friendship may be broken, but Rick doesn’t believe his friend is a killer. Fiercely loyal, Rick gets involved to the point of recklessness, not only risking his relationship with girlfriend, Leah, but his life. In his investigation, Rick relies heavily on his dog, his newly heightened sense of smell and modern conveniences, like Uber and Siri, to help him navigate a very dark world. In his pursuit of justice, Rick sets a course down a dangerous path to not only prove Turk’s innocence, but to prove that he’s still a darned good private investigator.

This is the 7th book in the series featuring private investigator Rick Cahill . Despite not having read any of the previous books, there were enough snippets of back story given for the main characters that made it easy to follow along. I really like the charcter of Rick - I found his relationship with Moira interesting and I am looking forward to reading the earlier books so I can see exactly how it came to be.

A very strong 4 stars

A PI is blinded when he’s shot in the face on his last previous case. He’s spending time healing and trying to adjust to his new life, but not working is driving him crazy. A friend asks him to work a case with her. The PI’s former boss suspects his girlfriend is lying to him and wants her checked out. They find that yes, she’s not being honest and shortly after the girlfriend turns up dead.

Blind Vigil runs you through how the PI uses all his senses to find the killer. In some instances his blindness actually helps him. It’s not only a mystery but it shows how a man can come back from what would be considered a career ending injury. I’m not really a fan of noir but I enjoyed Blind Vigil.

An excellent read containing a very likable hero, a tough nut sidekick and all the tension that goes with a great cat and mouse thriller.
Throw in that our hero is blind and then illustrate the advantages he has over other people with the rest of his senses and you get a most unique novel.
Really enjoyed it and will look out for more by this author.

What happens to a man when he loses his sight? For Rick Cahill, he can learn how many steps form the bedroom to the bathroom, how to safely walk and feed his dog, and even how to organize his clothes and get dressed. But what about his career as a private investigator. Things don't look good on that front. After all, how can he investigate what he cannot see?
While recovering from the gunshot wound that cost him his sight, a fellow PI, Moira, asks for his assistance with a case. She wants him to listen to her newest client and figure out if he is telling the truth. Turk is Rick's old friend, maybe even close to being a brother, but something in the past broke their relationship. Rick is curious why Turk would hire a PI, and pretty soon a woman is dead and it appears that Turk is the killer. Rick is one of the few who believe Turk is innocent, but can he prove what really happened or is the killer looking him right in the eye.
This was such an enjoyable read. Not only was Rick a seriously great character, but overcoming the limitations imposed by his blindness added another dynamic to the story. There is someone Rick refers to as the Invisible Man, he can't see him, but he can smell him, and he is sure that he is up to no good. Rick, Moira, Turk, and Leah, Rick's girlfriend all made Blind Vigil an engrossing and hard to put down book.
This isn't the first in this series, so I have plenty more to learn about this character.

Rick Cahill series # 7

What a great read this turned out to be. Although this is the 7th book in the series I had no trouble getting into it from the get-go Matt Coyle gives us snippets of what happened to his protagonist without lingering on his past and has masterfully moved forward his storyline with a blend of hard-boiled, noirish and a breath of fresh life to the PI tradition.

Blinded by a gunshot wound to the face while working as a PI nine months ago Rick Cahill is still trying to start a new life. But when his one-time partner Moira MacFarlane asks for his help on a case he couldn’t refuse...as always when Rick is involved things always turns deadly....

Mr. Coyle captured masterfully Cahill dealing with the loss of his eyesight and how he carries himself in the dark: he counts steps and is reliant on his others sense to move around. The mystery if told from the point of view of a blind person. I do have a weak spot for a first person narrative definitely my preferred style by a long shot.

Without a murder we wouldn’t have a captivating mystery Oh yes, Shay gets killed and Turk, Cahill’s best friend is the main suspect ...but he doesn’t believe his friend could do such a thing...and we have police, lawyers, suspects, friends and oh yes the Invisible Man with the Dove underarm smell...all in the fray... to entertain us and they do captivate till the very last page.

“Blind Vigil”, is well-written, fast-paced, has amazing and diverse characters and is a page turner very hard to put down. Excellent read.

Ooo yes this was a good one! Matt Coyle did an excellent job at capturing the characters stories and really making you dive deep into the novel. A must read!

Very good read. L0ts of twists and turns
. Loved the humor and dark sides of the characters.
Highly recommend.. thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

I received this book through NetGalley Read Now program.

This is the 1st book that I have read from this author and I enjoyed it a lot. The story starts with Rick continuing to recuperate from a shooting which has caused him to be blind. He receives a call from an associate of his who wants him to assist her with a case. She wants his take on whether or not the client that she is working for is upfront with his feelings. She had a previous experience with a similar case which made her stop do this type. Rick meets with the client , Turk a former acquaintance and assures the P.I. that Turk would not react the same way that her other client did.

After tailing Turk's girlfriend, they meet up with Turk and provide him with what they found. Thewe next morning they discover that Turk's gorlfriend was murder durng the night. Ultimately Turk was arrested for her murder.

Rick, assisting Turk's lawyer starts examining the evidence and looks into fin ding the killer. Turk's attorney, in the end feels that Rick is a detriment and asks him to stop working with them. Rick, even though he is blind, is able to discover why Turk's girlfriend was killed and who the real killer was. All of the action will keep your interes.

If you want to find out why Turk's girlfriend was murdered and who the killer was, then you must read this book. You won't be disappointed.

Blind Vigil is the seventh book in Coyle's Rick Cahill private investigator series, but reads well as a stand-alone book with just enough back story splashed in to orient the reader. Cahill is not on the best of terms with the local law enforcement stemming from days when he was the primary suspect for his wife’s murder. He has one good male friend, Turk, who becomes involved in the murder of his fiancée. Cahill also has a new girlfriend, Leah, who has seen him through being shot in the face in Santa Barbara and the long road to recovery and learning to live with his blindness. In addition, a fellow PI, Moira, has worked with Cahill on a few cases. These are the primary characters in Blind Vigil.

Cahill is a great wounded hero, and Coyle does a superb job of capturing Cahill’s efforts to deal with his lost eyesight, showing how he becomes reliant on his other senses and counts steps and uses his cane to get around. Cahill is a moody PI, tough, hard-boiled, and unapologetic, in the tradition of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. The secondary characters are well-developed. I enjoyed this one enough that I’ll have to backtrack to read books #1 through #6.

This presents a twist on the hard-boiled private detective. Rick Cahill has recovered from a gunshot wound that he suffered in the previous book, but he still can't see. At loose ends, he agrees to go with a colleague to meet with Turk, an old friend who thinks his girlfriend is cheating. Before you know it, Turk is accused of murder, and Rick may be the only person who believes in his innocence. Tight, suspenseful story.

Thanks to Oceanview Publishing for a digital ARC via NetGalley.

Blind Vigil is the seventh book in Coyle's Rick Cahill private investigator series. Oddly enough, San Diego has hosted only a relative few detective series over the years. But now, the Cahill series has firmly set modern San Diego (primarily the La Jolla area) as a great location for private eye fare. Like old time series, Cahill is not on the best of terms with the local law enforcement, has one or two good buddies, and is haunted by his past, which includes once being accused of his wife's murder. This novel begins where the last one left off with Cahill now blind and learning to cope with simply functioning and getting around. He can't really operate as a private eye or can he? Coyle does a masterful job of capturing Cahill dealing with his lost eyesight, finding himself reliant on his other senses, and dealing with the fact that no one seems to take his career seriously now. This novel has Cahill's best friend Turk in a jam and Cahill trying desperately to find answers as the exits all lockdown for his friend. This is a well-written book that moves along at a rapid pace.

Private detective Rick Cahill, recently blinded, agrees to assist in an investigation involving a former close friend and associate, Turk Muldoon. Clearly the continuation of a previous story arc, but in the noir fashion it works fine as a standalone.

Cahill reminds me strongly of Max Holman in Robert Crais' The Two Minute Rule: a basically decent guy in a bad spot trying to climb out via obsession over something hopefully more controllable.

I like the short chapters: they keep me in the moment. The ruminations are repetitive in the way of a scared person reassuring himself of his situation and circumstances.

What I do not like is the lying and the wishy washy flipping between Turk being a close friend vs a former friend, and the emphatic certainty that Turk is innocent vs the stolid certainty that he is not innocent. Doubt I could deal with, but the absolutes make me shake my head.

Overall I enjoy how the story unfolds. I recommend this book to fans of Robert Crais.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oceanview for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book straight through. Love Rick Cahill, and Leah. Moira the "other" PI requests Rick help on helping her determine if she should take a case. The case is surveillance of Rick's old friend Turk's girlfriend. Rick being blind is a huge hurdle, but his other senses given unusual insight. The plot was well developed and kept me turning pages as fast as I could read. Excellent story.

This is more like it!

The last (and only) Rick Cahill book I read was Lost Tomorrows, and I found him to be a bit of an Eeyore, constantly mired in guilt about his wife's death.

SPOILER!

He also got shot in the face and that was a helluva way to end things.

He survived, and it's now nine months later. Cahill is blind - with the chance that his eyesight may or may not return - and his girlfriend Leah (you may remember her as the sister of his former partner at the Santa Barbara PD) is splitting time between Santa Barbara and Cahill's place in San Diego.

Moira - a San Diego-based PI - gets in touch with Cahill and wants him to come with her on a job. What job? Turk Muldoon, and old friend of Cahill's, has hired her to spy on his girlfriend Shay, whom he thinks is seeing someone else. Cahill points out he can't see anything, but Moira is more interested in his ears, and if he can tell what Turk is feeling and how apt he would be to snap and kill Shay if she was seeing someone else. Moira had given news of a wife's infidelity previously to a doctor (her own son's pediatrician, no less) who proceeded to off his wife, child, and then himself. She'd rather that not be the case here, and Cahill assures her Turk would never do something like that.

Shay, of course, is then found dead, and all indications are it's Turk who killed her after an argument overheard by neighbors. Moira rails at Cahill, that he was wrong and now they've gotten Shay killed, but Cahill disagrees. Moira exits the case, but Cahilll wants to help his pal any way he can, even if he still can't see.

Turk is arrested for murder, but Cahill has found information that tells him Idaho is where he needs to go. He ropes Moira back in, and they're off, to talk to one recalcitrant cowboy but then to a more garrulous one. From there, it's off to a PI who was trying to track down Shay's father, who disappeared with over $800K dollars from the sale of the family ranch, leaving Shay and her mother with nothing. Her father was identified as the decedent in an auto wreck in Mexico, under his own name - this after the PI tells them Shay's father used various aliases.

While all of this is going on, Rick keeps smelling the same man, repeatedly -following him and Moira, following just Cahill. But Moira never sees him, and Cahill dubs him the Invisible Man.

With that information, they head back to San Diego, to figure out a way to find Shay's maybe/maybe-not dead father and a ranch hand who worked on the ranch prior to its sale. By now, we are all fairly sure Shay found her dad, and that he likely had something to do with her death. I will reiterate for whatever nth time it is that I still don't like characters going to the bad guy, alone, without telling anyone.

I won't go into details about the end except to say that "blind vigil" certainly is in play the last 20% of the book

Four and a half stars, dinged for character stupidity. I'm feeling generous, though, and I did like the story quite a lot, so I'm rounding up this time: five stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview for the reading copy.

Release date: 01 Dec 2020.

This is miles ahead of Lost Tomorrows, in my book (ha), and I'm

Kudos to author Matt Coyle on the exciting novel Blind Vigil. I read it straight through as I found the plot exciting and the characters quite interesting. Rick Cahill as the private eye reluctantly retired when he went bling following a shooting injury is spot on. I do confess to being somewhat queasy as I read of his exploits without sight. But having his sense of smell enhanced helped him pick up on a mystery man who turns out to be key to the plot. It was predictable, given the constant updates on Cahill's vision, that he would regain his sight. Making that less obvious might have enhanced the story. But, it's darn good and I recommend it to others.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

A very satisfying read featuring a determined private investigator.
I liked everything about “Blind Vigil”, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview Publishing): the dark, sarcastic wounded hero, who happens to be very affectionate and loyal with his friends, the well-developed characters, the suspense plotline with its underlying feelings of sadness and loss and the well written first person point of view.
Rick Cahill is a great wounded hero and the cohesiveness the author brought to his blindness is awesome. We readers are always aware that the story is being told from the point of view of a blind person. Being deliberately vague here, I’ll just add that the progress is well written and believable, too, with a compelling focus on how Rick absorbs and deals with the changes.
The various characters are all relatable and complex and added depth to the story. Turk is another delightful wounded male character, I really felt for him and how he was struggling with grief. I particularly loved Rick and Turk’s friendship, how they’re so affectionate and loyal to each other despite their conflicts. It reminded me how friendship can be such a powerful thing in our lives.

Wow, what a great book. Besides the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the plot, the main character Rick Cahill being blind really put a different spin on everything, and I love the way Matt Coyle was able to bring him to life and explain things the way he did. If I had the time and didn’t have to work I would have read this book in one sitting, I enjoyed it that much.
Rick Cahill has felt helpless over the last year since he lost his eyesight. Continuing his career as a private investigator was out of the question, even without being blind it had almost gotten him killed. However, now that his friend Thomas ‘Turk’ Muldoon wants his girlfriend Shay Sommers investigated, Rick is quite happy when Moira asks him to assist her. Turk is sure that Shay is cheating on her, and before he asks her to marry him, he needs to know. Moira didn’t have a great experience with the last client that suspected his partner was cheating on him, so she’s apprehensive how this one will turn out. Rick’s just happy to be back in the game. A brilliant read. 5/5 Star Rating.

Ok. This was the best book in the series so far. Tense, full of emotional situations and we see Rick at his most vulnerable. Yet he's still capable of finding the truth and function through his blindness. Risking his very life for his old friend Turk, and refusing to let him be framed for a murder he didn't commit. The last two pages literally brought me to tears. This was powerful human suffering, so many losing so much, yet becoming even closer as human beings and friends. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to read Blind Vigil. You should too.