A few years ago, I introduced Kevin Tipple to Joseph Schneider and his first LAPD Detective Tully Jarsdel mystery. Now, with the third one, he’s ahead of me. I haven’t read The Darkest Game yet. So, thank you, Kevin, for reviewing the latest book in the series.
The Darkest Game: A Novel by Joseph Schneider is the third book in this police procedural series that features LAPD detective Tully Jarsdel. A former academic who left his PhD program as he was working on his dissertation in order to join the LAPD, he is an enigma to his police coworkers as well as his parents who fled Iran long ago. This read builds on the previous books so it is best to have read them before embarking on this read.
Things have been relatively calm by Los Angeles standards, so Detective Jarsdel has been working cold cases. There are plenty of them for the Hollywood Homicide Table, aka HH2, and Jarsdel likes the emotional distance of old unsolved cases. It allows him to focus on the details of each case. Focusing on the work also allows him to ignore how some at the Hollywood station still treat him after all this time.
The cold cases and other matters are going to have to wait as they have a fresh murder up in Laurel Canyon. The body has been dead in the house for three days or so. The air conditioning has been on so that helps a little bit. The fact that most of his face is gone, thanks to being shot, does not help with the identification process. Not only is part of the face mostly gone, so too are the bullet casings.
The initial officers responding to the scene thought it was a home invasion gone wrong. That does not work for Morales, Jarsdel’s partner, as he can’t figure out why a home invasion robber would go to the trouble of picking up the casings out of the shag carpeting. While his wallet seems to be gone, it is kind of weird that the cushions have been yanked free and tossed randomly around on the floor. There was a lot of anomalies at the crime scene and the detectives are not sure exactly what they are looking at.
After figuring out who he was, they learn that he worked at a place named the Harrington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. They head there in the June heat and learn that Mr. Dean Burken was officially the “Donor Engagement Director.” A difficult man to get along with, he was in charge of securing large donations-financial or physical objects.
It becomes clear that the victim, in addition to be a difficult person to work with, also used his position as a weapon against others who did not bow to his wishes. This was especially true with the female staff and researchers. He was skilled at working things so that his actions appeared innocent, but the reality of what he was doing goes far deeper.
That means the suspect pool is quite large. It also means that somebody had good reason to kill him in this very complicated book.
Like the other books in this series, the read is part police procedural and part history and culture book. Those segments, whether it be art, Iranian history, or something else, are skillfully worked into the police procedural as Jarsdel and Morales work the case.
This is a good series and the latest, The Darkest Game: A Novel Joseph Schneider is a very good one. Strongly recommended.
The previous books in the series are One Day You’ll Burn and What Waits For You.
My reading coy came from the Forest Green Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
