Book Review – “Stalked” by Brian Freeman

If Immoral was Brian Freeman as a rookie writer, Stalked is Freeman in full maturity. It’s not exactly correct to say this book is “better” than the first one, because that automatically carries the connotation that Immoral had major deficiencies. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that all the strengths and skills Freeman demonstrated in the first book have been honed and polished. Clarified and made shinier, like a diamond.

I enjoyed Immoral so much that when I found the third and fourth books in the library, I simply couldn’t wait for the second one (Stripped) before reading the others. So I plunged into Stalked right away.

It takes place after Duluth detective Jonathan Stride has come back from the time spent in Las Vegas working with his new significant other, LVPD detective Serena Dial. She has moved back to Minnesota with him, intrigued and a little exhilarated by both the drastic change in climate and the difference in pace and crime levels. Now, rather than trying to join Stride’s own police force, she has set up shop as a private investigator.

Early in the book, Stride muses that most crime in Las Vegas revolves around sex in some way. Yet the cases both he and Serena encounter in the course of the book revolve around sex as well, sometimes involving a colder, more implacable preoccupation than anything you’d find in the desert.

Virtually every major character in the book is forced, in these cases, to confront his or her own preconceptions, both about sex and about their general relationships to others. Old traumas and fears seem to rise up at every stage of the investigations. Stride’s partner, Maggie, really comes into her own in this story as she must deal with the circumstances of her husband’s death. And the romantic partnership of Stride and Serena is put to a severe test as demons from her past come back to haunt her.

In Immoral, the suspense was of a more cerebral kind rather than action-oriented, as we held our breaths to see what turn the investigation would take next. But in Stalked, it’s much more action-based, as threat looms around every corner and we keep waiting to find out when it’s going to pounce again. This, I think, is where Brian Freeman’s skills have really been polished: as well as posing an intriguing investigative puzzle, he drags us to the edge of our seats and rarely gives us a chance to lean back again until we’ve reached the last life-and-death finale.

I have very few reservations about this book. As an editor, I did occasionally twitch when the passive voice appeared too often. (“The fields were covered in snow and the lawn chairs were buried,” rather than something a tad more dynamic like, “Snow blanketed the fields and buried the lawn chairs.”) But would anyone but me notice that sort of thing, and did it actually detract from anything important? Definitely not.

I felt more ambivalent as I watched Freeman trying to write the experiences of two women who had been sexually traumatized. Each of them agreed that their male companion “couldn’t really understand,” and I wondered if Freeman himself could really understand either. I’m still not sure that he got it entirely, but I think he did an admirable job, and understood better than most.

If you enjoy the suspense/mystery genre, I really think you’ll enjoy this book. In fact, if you liked Immoral, I’d venture to say that you’ll love Stalked.

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