Excellent story! So many dead ends and opportunities for management to declare the deaths as unsolvable. Is it greed or a love of controlling life and death? And how to find out the how, who and why, This detective story is well done. It holds the interest and kept me engrossed. I like the slices of home life for the detectives. Well done!

I received an ARC through "NetGalley" and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

What a great book The story begins with Mac and Oliver being called to respond to death of a powerful lawyer. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered the M.E. at the scene. She told them that the death looked suspicious. During her autopsy, she discovered what looked to be a prick where a needle was inserted. Mac along with Oliver begin their investigation. As they were proceeding, they discovered that a similar occurrence happened just recently. There was a death in a hit and run which also seemed to be connected. They discovered that each of their individuals had sold their life insurance policy to the same company.

During their investigation they found film of two individuals who were at the scene where the deaths happened. Using a CI, they were able to discover that the individuals were in the data base, but the message they received signified that these people were part of a government agency.

As they got closer in addition to discovering more deaths that had the same MO, they received an envelope from a unknown party providing them with names. Using this information, they were able to verify that these individuals were the people discovered at the scene. With this information they put in place a plan to arrest them.

To discover who these individuals were, who was the ringleader, what happened during the arrests and how Mac's ex-wife played a role in the story, then you need to read this book. You won't be disappointed.

An interesting spin on the insurance industry highlights how fraudsters would always find ways and means to make a quick buck. The underlying premise of the story is about a practice in the insurance industry wherein an intermediary buys a live insurance policy from an insurer especially those who find it difficult to pay the periodic charge. These policies are bought at a heavy discount and the intermediary pays the remaining premium till maturity and encashes the policy at its full value. The difference is the benefit accrued to the intermediary for his efforts and investment. This seems a fairly clean transaction till things take a bad turn when these people who had prematurely encashed their policies start dying with no underlying cause so that the intermediary benefits from a quicker return on the investment. An imaginative idea that has been well-written, keeps the reader hooked till the very end. On the whole an enjoyable read.

This is a solid old-school police procedural, something you don't see published much anymore. It's certainly not a flashy novel. The prose is stolid and flat, much like the report of a police investigation would be. The narrative pace is plodding and deliberate, much like an actual police investigation would be. None of that is criticism, merely description. I like old-school police procedurals. Maybe you do, too.

My one serious quibble with the book is the core incitement the author chose to drive the whole narrative line. It's honestly a bit of a turnoff. Regardless of the events it triggered here, insurance is considered by almost everyone to be a fatally dull subject (no pun intended). That's a hard predisposition to overcome.

Lots of coincidences, lots of conveniently available people able and willing on no notice at all to answer the detectives' questions, and the men investigating the crimes (that might not be crimes) never follow a blind alley or take a wrong turn for long. No one in their chain of command ever questions how they got the information they have, taking their word for whatever they're saying without pushback or demands for sources.

Mac is divorced from Maggie. She lives with him still. She also breaks rules (sort of, that is if as she's hinted at being employed by A Gummint Intelligence Agency she sure as heck does) to help him out. Everyone loves these guys! They're so lovable, hell, I'd marry 'em both!

That's really the sum total of my grumbling. Oh, and the fact that they rehash basically the entire case to date whenever they talk to someone new. What works for me is their inability to set aside the essential unfairness of the viatical "services" industry, which I learned about in the 1980s during the AIDS epidemic. Lots of gay men had the kind of jobs that come with life insurance, and were definitely not going to live very long; a large number of them sold their life insurance collection rights to investors for 50% of face value so as to be able to live with some shreds of dignity until they died.

Capitalism rots.

So anyway, the detectives don't think hurrying the inevitable in order to maximize your profits is acceptable investment management, and set about proving that's what some unkind souls have done. That they succeed is inherent in the genre. The way they go about achieving that success is the fun part. I enjoyed their antics, for the most part, and will definitely read the next one in the series. Oceanview, a relatively new player on the series-mystery publishing scene, is doing a lot of books like this one...not Big Names, unconventional plots and detectives, settings one doesn't necessarily expect for the kind of mystery being told. This one, set in Washington, DC, for example...it's not race-based "urban" or rankly political, it's an interesting business crime. I am all for this publishing house keeping up the good work they're doing with worthwhile new authors like (retired? lawyer) James Spoonhour.

A debut novel, Incentive for Death (2023) by James Spoonhour is a taut police procedural set in Washington D.C. The death of the managing partner of a law firm is determined as inconclusive and is investigated by homicide detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department. Experienced and capable detectives McDermott “Mac” Burke and Oliver Shaw are tasked with the case, but there are few leads and little forensic evidence. A succinct narrative details the lengths Mac and Oliver must go to discover possible links between a number of suspicious deaths. An enjoyable crime tale that captures a detailed dogged detective team, interesting characters and action, making for a four stars rating. With thanks to Oceanview Publishing and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without inducement.

This is the first book that I read by Mr. Spoonhour and I quite enjoyed it. The plot is well put together and mixes mystery with finance/insurance, however, how the crime was committed and how the detectives obtained the information at various stages keeps on being repeated which I found tiresome but did not make me stop reading it. The way Mags helps Mac Burke find the culprit and at the same time keep her anonymity is also intriguing. I'll be looking forward to reading more stories in this series.
I thank Mr. Spoonhour and his publisher for this ARC.

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 but 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 going to 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.

law-enforcement, lawyers, Washington DC, working-partners, multiple-murder, murder-investigation, due-diligence, procedural, CIA, assassins, suspense, no-gratuitous-erotica, greed*****

It's not perfect but I want to encourage the author to write more books in the Detective Mac Burke series.
Detectives Mac Burke and Oliver Shaw are partners in the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. The first call sets the stage for a series of bloodless murders with motives that are not obvious at first. The diligence is meticulous (and a little sneaky at times) and sometimes takes a little work to make it suitable for prosecution, the characters are interesting, and the plot is well done. How could I not like a protagonist who is also addicted to Basmati rice?
The only thing that bored me was the turn by turn noting of city travel.
I requested and received an EARC from Oceanview Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!

Burke and Shaw solving mysteries. Intrigue. Life insurance policies. Murder and mayhem. Secrets and red herrings. This talented author has written a cannot put down whodunit. The investigators are realistic characters who come alive on the pages of this thriller. Don't miss it. Thanks to Netgalley.

It starts with the death of a high-powered lawyer. A tiny puncture mark indicates that this is not what it seems. Detectives Burke and Shaw start to find connections and it becomes a race against time. Really enjoyed this book, and would recommend.

DNF. The author's attempt at Dragnet-style writing doesn't work very well. There are awkward sentences, redundant phrases, and plot holes from the beginning.

This was one of the best books I've read this year and also very very different. It features two homicide detectives who have worked closely together both in the police and armed forces. This close co-operation between them Mac Burke and Oliver Shaw makes them a very specialist team. A new case is brought to their attention involving a financial crime linked to an unusual investment involving the sale of life assurance products.

They all sold their life insurance policies to the same company— and now they' re all dead. Mac and Oliver are on the case.
On a beautiful spring morning in Washington, D.C., a high-profile attorney is found dead in his office. McDermott “ Mac” Burke and Oliver Shaw, homicide investigators for the Metropolitan Police Department, are called to investigate. There appear to be no signs of foul play, but there is also no obvious sign of a natural cause of death.

The detectives are perplexed until the medical examiner notices a tiny pin prick on the lawyer' s neck and theorizes that the man was injected with succinylcholine— aka “ sux” — which is a common horse tranquilizer that dissipates quickly in the body.

As Mac and Oliver begin to look further, they discover that the lawyer had sold his life insurance policy to a large viatical company. Then, they realize that more deaths under mysterious circumstances have occurred among those who' ve sold their policies to the same company.

With mere coincidence seeming unlikely, Mac and Oliver dive headfirst into a now complex and far-reaching murder investigation— if they don' t uncover what' s really happening, many more lives could be at stake.
The plot rushes on in a very gripping way until the final conclusion. I spent a large number of years working in a financial environment and I found the book very stimulating and dramatic and I must find more books in the future by this very gifted author.

Fantastic read. Characters are well defined. Kept my interest from the beginning. Highly recommend this book. Look forward to reading other books by this author.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing for an advance copy of Incentive for Death, a stand-alone police procedural featuring Detectives Mac Burke and Oliver Shaw of MPD, Washington DC.

A high powered lawyer is found dead in his office with no obvious cause of death. The Medical Examiner finds a puncture mark and suspects the victim was injected with succinylcholine, but it’s a fast dissolving drug so there is no proof. Mac and Oliver are left to investigate the murder of a man with no known enemies. Then they find that the victim sold his life insurance policy to a specialist company and wasn’t the only only to do it and die.

I enjoyed Incentive for Death, which has an absorbing plot and some likeable characters. It is told mostly from Mac’s first person point of view so the reader gets close to the investigation and can fully understand every step he and Oliver take. I liked the clarity and logic of it. On the other hand, there are other voices involved so it’s not so much of a whodunnit as a how to get to an arrest. I am a sucker for police procedurals so this approach greatly appealed to me and I got absorbed in all the manoeuvring, some of it less legal than others, and in a novel (to me) emphasis on how to make the illegally gathered information suitable for court.

Given that the plot is about money there is a fair amount of talk about it. I found the detail of where it went and when a bit boring, but it does make the case and makes sense, but I really didn’t need a spreadsheet, even if I am a fan of spreadsheets, in my reading. Despite this the plot moves along at a decent pace and is continually developing and held my interest throughout.

I understand that this is a debut novel so there are a few teething problems. The writing is a bit clunky and there is too much description of what people are wearing and what routes they take to their destinations. I understand that the writer wants the reader to feel situated with the area and recognise the characters but it’s too noticeable and distracts from the plot.

Incentive for Death is a good read that I can recommend.

Not the most exciting book ever written, and we know early on who is committing the murders and why. Worth reading, though, to see how detectives Mac and Oliver start with virtually nothing and slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together,

Easy to read police procedural. Good story and characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

The Incentive , - James Spoonhour

A well-written,, written, interesting police procedural with a twist.

Note: It is funny, I wasn't even AWARE people could sell their life insurance policies, however this is the 2nd mystery have read this month with this premise...however this book's description gives the reason for the murders away.

Until next time, stay safe!

I enjoyed this book. The detectives are more true to life and solve the murders by old fashioned work. They do have some unofficial help which is fun. So many detective stories are full of fighting and shooting. Good characters who truly like each other

Excellent murder mystery. Detectives try to figure out whodunit. Big business or some other nefarious person/people with an incentive to kill for life insurance payouts?