Tracy Clark’s Fall is one of the books I hope to read in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, I’m always happy to share one of Kevin Tipple’s review. If you’re looking for Kevin’s site, please check out https://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/.

Thank you, Kevin, for your review of Fall with no spoilers.

It has been a few months since Hide as Fall: A Harriet Foster Thriller by Tracy Clark begins
and things are still rather tense in the squad room. Detective Foster is still haunted by the past
and doing her best to function in her minimalist life. She works, goes home, and stares at the tree
outside her house, and sleeps. That daily ritual is interrupted by having to attend the resentencing
hearing of her son’s killer at the Cook County Courthouse.

Trying to explain to others the depths of her loss is unfathomable. A situation that Marin Shaw is
in though in a far different way.

For one thing, her child, Zoe, is still very much alive. But, Marin Shaw has not seen her daughter
in three years because former Chicago Alderman Marin Shaw has been in prison. An alcoholic, a
lawyer, a wife, a mother, and a progressive Democrat member of the city council, until her
personal house of cards came tumbling down. She did the crime and she has done the time
though she could have made life far easier if she had rolled over for prosecutors and told all.

She steps out of Logan Correctional one winter’s day, a free woman though her guilt about what
she has done is its own form of prison. Thankfully, her lawyer and friend, Charlotte Moore, is
awaiting her in order to whisk her away from the prying eyes of the media and others outside the
prison walls.

The plan, and it is so not her plan, is for Marin to go to the condo downtown as her husband,
Will, and Zoe, wait for the latest round of media scrutiny to fade. Will does not want Marin at the
house so as to not stress Zoe. All Marin cares about is Zoe, so she agrees to the situation for now.

At the same time, the story about Marin Shaw is once again a media focus. She wasn’t alone in
the corruption, but she stayed quiet. With her publicized release, some of her fellow aldermen are
quite concerned as to what she will do now. There are weak links in the corrupt group, as there
always are, and threats are made between several group members.

Then the murders begin.

Detective Harriet Foster and Li catch the first murder. Alderman Deanna Leonard is dead on the
sixth floor of a Chicago parking garage from what some would conclude was a self-inflicted
gunshot wound. Much the same way Foster’s old partner committed suicide, also with no
warning, sometime back. And while Leonard’s death reminds her of that, there are differences,
and Foster is not convinced it was a suicide. The Especially after the medical examiner confirms
it definitely was not.

At the time of Shaw’s trial, it was widely speculated that Alderman Leonard was part of the latest
crowd of crooks at city hall. But, Shaw never named names. That leaves Foster and Li
wondering if Shaw took vengeance? Or was some sort of random killing just hours after Shaw
got out. Did she do it? Did she hire someone? Is she involved?

There are many questions to answer and a lot to do.

Fall: A Harriet Foster Thriller by Tracy Clark is a complicated novel that works very well in all
areas. Multiple storylines with many moving pieces, it is best to have read Hide before reading
this book. Character development for Foster and several others continues and builds upon what
readers already know and does so while not interfering with the main storyline. Rich,
complicated, and full of detail, this second book in the police procedural series is just like the
first, a mighty good read.

My digital ARC came from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer by way of the NetGalley system.
The book was released in both print and digital formats on December 5, 2023.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023