B. R. Robb is the pseudonym for attorney, Bruce Steinberg of Chicago. He has one previous novel, "The Widow's Son," which won a first novel grand prize in Milwaukee in 2000.
"River Ghosts," is a masterpiece. It should be receiving critical acclaim for its author, whom I hope will write again much sooner than in eight more years. It has the same kind of psychological impact that "Lovely Bones" had and it should be getting the same kind of attention.
This is a police thriller and a commentary on racial prejudice in America, which is portrayed as still very much alive and well.
We are confronted with the release of a supposedly reformed Neo-Nazi who had been convicted of the murder of a racially mixed couple sixteen years prior in a smallish Midwestern city. He was convicted on the eye-witness testimony of the young son of the couple, who grew up to become a police officer in his home town. Understandably, the cop, Richard's sleep is regularly disturbed by images of his parents' murders and the man who committed the crime, whom he saw from his hiding place under a table.
This taught and beautifully written story uncovers how DNA evidence could have been manipulated to acquit a guilty man and how the young police officer and his partner managed to prove it.
Hopefully, that's not giving away too much of the plot. I believe anyone who reads this book will find it refreshingly literary. I know I did after a summer of reading good, but mostly formulaic mysteries by well known authors.
Yes, there is still a literary muse at work in new fiction!
Liz Nichols
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