If you are looking for a novel to explain why we should defund the police, this could definitely be the book. Every single bad guy is an officer of the law. Now I don't find that offensive but I imagine that some people might. My biggest problem was the protagonist being absolutely irresistible to every woman in the book while being so un"woke" that he still uses the word retarded, which I do find offensive. It wasn't until The Mandalorian appeared that I resigned myself to this being set now, rather than in some strange version of the '50s. It's not a bad book, it just feels very dated.

Good book, but not my favorite by this author. Still, it is definitely worth reading if you like a gritty police story.

This is a cracking good crime novel.
LAPD homicide detective Niels Madsen finds himself in the middle of a standoff between two uniformed officers and Cisco, an intellectually disabled man. Cisco is found armed and standing over the body of a man with Down syndrome. Cisco swears the dead man was his good friend, and he didn’t hurt him, but in his earlier life, Cisco had been a gang member, a brilliant and brutal killer. After he was badly beaten, brain injuries left him—if he is to be believed—with the intellectual intelligence of a child. Madsen must decide whether or not to believe the suspect who claims innocence, and determine who else can be trusted as he navigates a special needs community, East LA gang life and the political expediency of the LAPD.

From the first page, this novel gets going with its central plot, and this is the aspect of Josh Stallings’ writing that I appreciate the most: he doesn’t waste the reader’s time. His writing is laser-focused, economical and swiftly paced. At our first introduction to Niels, he’s established to be a knight errant, a maverick in the department with a relentless approach to solving cases. His partner, Darius Kazim is new to Homicide and partners with Niels with the additional brief of keeping an eye on him for the Chief. The partnership dynamic between these two characters reminds me of the duo from Department Q, the Jussi Adler-Olsen series, a quirky pairing with sharp, witty dialogue that ricochets through the action without ever intruding upon the action. There were many times where I had to chuckle; the one-liners are genuinely funny without seeming contrived.

The crime plot moves along at a compelling pace, and I ripped through this novel in a day. I enjoyed the freshness of the crime set up, which is the point the novel opens; an intellectually disabled man holds a gun over the dead body of his best friend, whilst two LAPD officers hold their guns on him. What has happened? The plot is compelling and never falls into implausibility or obviousness - I was along for the ride and unable to see the destination at the same rate as the central characters.

There is a love interest for Madsen in the form of Adair Hettrick, Cisco’s social worker and conservator. Again the dialogue between the two characters zings and hums nicely, without ever losing itself to melodrama or, typically with crime novels, sexual objectification and a woman who can’t help herself, which normally has me rolling my eyes.

Madsen is a tough guy, with a soft interior who needs to learn how to trust others. Trust is central to the story: working out who is to be trusted will be key to Madsen staying alive. “Everyone lies to the police,” Madsen tells another character. And then, even the police lie.

I loved this novel - it rollicks along, with punchy dialogue, endearing characters, relentless action and a strongly evocative LA landscape. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to. I am a Southern California native living near Pasadena, just to the northeast of Los Angeles. There are plenty of detective novels set in LA, but most of them focus on conventionally attractive people who live in the center of the city, Hollywood or the Westside. And very few of them are filled with people who seem like they are real.

This book completely subverts that paradigm. The story is set in lesser known areas of the city (and is very accurate with its descriptions), and the characters are not the stereotypical LA folks. I really enjoyed both of these elements, and on top of that, I enjoyed the mystery as well. All together this one is win!

Thanks to Agora Books for providing me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley.

I just could not get into this book it was so slow, and the plot was just boring. I wasn't interested at all. I need a book to start out with some sort of punch or a catch and it never came. I want to thank NetGalley for giving me a copy of this book to read.

There's more to this novel than crime fiction and solving the mystery of who killed David Torres. For background let me explain: Josh and his wife Erika are the parents of two sons. One of them, Dylan, is a young man with special needs who has probably had a bunch of labels relating to his intellectual capacity or how he looks or communicates. The title of TRICKY came from Dylan. When his father takes shortcuts, he refers to it as going "the tricky way." That combined with the growth in awareness about police violence and how disabled people are treated by them and the general public clearly have part of the roots in TRICKY.

Detective Niels Madsen is a grand Nord by blood and stature but lives the life of a cowboy while working for the LAPD and caring for his grandfather Hem who suffers from dementia. TRICKY has action right out of the gate from page one. Madsen comes across a scene we've witnessed on the internet and news millions of times by now: police have guns raised and pointed at a person of color. There's also a body already dead. I was hooked in chapter one and crying by chapter three.

Madsen battles his gut instinct which tells him that something is very wrong with the presentation of uniformed officers pointing guns at a Latino man covered in gang tattoos and holding a unique collectible handgun. Everything looks like Cisco Gutierrez is guilty of killing his supposed friend David. It takes Madsen's gentle cowboy style to convince the officers not to shoot. Madsen approaches the victim and Cisco cautiously when he realizes a couple of important things that make this story worth telling more than others.

The victim, David Torres, is described as having flat features, a small nose, upward slant to his eyes which indicate Down Syndrome. David's limited family members consisting of his mother and grandfather may seem loving and accepting of who David is as a person, but bigotry and bias are among his closest contacts. David and Cisco are best friends and roommates at a house for people with various special needs run by a woman named June Cleaver (yes, her name is acknowledged). LA happens to have something called a SMART team or mental evaluation unit. This is definitely something not available nationwide.

The cop shop has a diverse cast of people of non-Anglo surnames and backgrounds including Madsen's brand new partner Kazim. A few need to be taught that the R-word is not used anymore including Madsen. LA's overall makeup with it's cultural neighborhoods and gang territories are explained colorfully. Grandpa Hem's dementia clouds his reality that he's still an active LA cop. No doubt living with him his entire life gave Madsen some notions about the patience needed to have Cisco around all the time. It's still a learning curve. Cisco takes everything literally and prefers to stick to the rigid routine his caregiver June set up. Cisco doesn't understand conversation littered with puns and colloquialisms. More diversity in the special needs community is shown by the other residents of the home too. Some like to laugh, one uses a wheelchair, and one only screams.

Author Josh Stallings shows how complicated this situation is. Even the gentle giant Madsen has to get physical in order to disarm the lead suspect who happens to be intellectually disabled. It makes Madsen lie as he continues to tell this poor man, Cisco, that his already faulty memories might not be right. Everything points to Cisco being the killer especially when the evidence of the bullet ballistics is conveniently tampered with so the bullets inside the victim can't be tied to the antique gun nor to the cops on the scene.

Madsen grows more sympathy for Cisco with each chapter; yet, he wonders if someone so evil, a gangster who has done time for murdering a small child, could convincingly be faking this intellectual disability in order to be outside of a prison. By the third act, Madsen finally feels some inner peace that Cisco is not pretending about his memory or his capabilities. Once social worker Adair comes into the picture, Cisco ends up with multiple people who will do anything to keep him on the lam during the investigation.

The key groups ratcheting up the tension are the LA Sheriffs Department, LAPD, Corrections, and Riverside Sheriffs not to mention there's always internal affairs lurking in the background. The real history of gangs/posses within law enforcement may surprise some readers. It's more than what you'd see in a mob movie of a cop taking a bribe "for protection" each week to look the other way. There were actual gangs who would rob places and then get to investigate their own crimes setting up people they felt deserved it.

Madsen goes through the biggest growth in story arc. Stallings allows the cowboy to open his heart to people who go through life differently. He's not shy about having a romantic life. He also knows that family is what you make it. Questions are answered in due time. What happened to Cisco that made him go from a derelict teenager to a gangster in adult prison to a disabled kind-hearted human being who couldn't anyone?