Dead Connection
Alafair Burke
Reviewed by Diane Kasperski
If you use internet chat rooms, dating services or social groups online
you may not want to read Dead Connection. It is so real that it is
scary.
Ellie Hatcher is placed on a special assignment in homicide to work
with Flann McIlroy, a detective who doesn’t have the best of
reputations amongst his fellow officers. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a
good officer it was that he went way out on limbs to follow his
hunches. A young woman has been brutally murdered. Flann’s ‘hunch’ is
that this murder is somehow related to FirstDate - a computer service
for people to meet and an internet stalker.
Ellie and Flann become very frustrated. There were no leads in the
case. Everything led to a dead end but then a ballistics report show
that the gun used in the murder was used exactly one year ago in
another murder. This stumped the two detectives even more because the
two women had absolutely nothing in common. There just were no
connections other than they were both dead.
Then another murder occurs and this woman was also a FirstDate member.
Tiny cracks in the case start to break Nothing seemed to connect though
and confusing the issue was the first murder. Flann is very suspicious
of the officer, Ed Becker, who investigated the original murder a year
ago. Things just don’t add up. He pulls the old records and they are
sloppy and incomplete. Afterall, how does a retired officer afford a
yacht, private club and more - Ellie believes Flann is just reacting
based on his dislike of the other officer. But is he?
The more investigating they do the foggier the issues become. How were
all three murders related? Why of all the murders does one seem more
personal than the others? There are hints that the first murder could
be related to the Russian mafia. Then hints that the Russian Mafia
could be linked to FirstDate but where does the current internet
stalker come in? Could there be two murderers with different agendas?
Alafair Burke touches a very serious subject in this current mystery -
internet stalkers and the safety of the net. She does a very credible
job in Dead Connection. The possibility of internet stalkers makes the
murders all the more real and intertwining the previous murder
complicates the possibilities but makes for an interesting read.