When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside of Oakland, CA is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It’s his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south… fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it’s the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up–first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Sinclair is unable to link the victims to each other, but the killer is just getting started and time is running out on Sinclair’s career, not to mention the people closest to him.

With Red Line, Brian Thiem, a veteran of the Oakland police department and the Iraq war, has written a nuanced police procedural in the vein of Michael Connelly, filled with the kind of insight that could only be written by a detective who has walked the streets and lived the life.