Last Case — John Luciew

DON'T MISS JOHN LUCIEW'S ALL-NEW, FULL-LENGTH POLICE PROCEDURAL MYSTERY!A brutal crime. A dogged detective. And 34 years of unreasonable doubt.It's 1978 and acclaimed horror director George A. Romero is gearing up to shoot his zombie cult classic “Dawn of the Dead” in the Monroeville Mall, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.On Halloween night, a 12-year-old girl dressed as Olivia Newton-John's character from “Grease” is slashed to death in a brutal, bloody crime. Her mutilated, blood-soaked corpse is found on the back patio of her broken, unhappy steelworker's home on the outskirts of the city. But as imperfect as they both are, the girl's estranged, unfit parents seem incapable of this level of violence.The shocking, sensational case ignites a culture war within the Pittsburgh Police Department, pitting old-school, bare-knuckles detective Sal Flores against college-educated upstart Finbarr Mulcahy.Forced to work together, the two warring detectives follow a convoluted trail of evidence to a special-effects guru working on the “Dawn of the Dead” production. Did this make-up man's obsession with death, dismemberment and bloody violence veer from make-believe into murder?A key piece of evidence tied to the celebrated zombie movie set seems to clinch the case.But Mulcahy isn't so sure. And the uncertainly nags at him for the next 34 years. Until the celebrated veteran detective, now in the late stages of colon cancer, decides to revisit the case one last time.The debilitated detective is joined by a young-but-retired protégé in the department who lost a limb while a reservist in the Iraq war. Along with Mulcahy' beautiful, computer-crafty hospice nurse, they pursue the real killer in hopes of unraveling more than three decades of mystery. All before Mulcahy takes the final secrets to his own grave.Told in chapters that alternative between past and present, this engrossing, two-track mystery will leave you guessing until the very last page.It's a heart-stopping battle against the criminal justice bureaucracy, a stone-cold killer's unmerciful evil -- and mortality itself. You won't be able to stop reading until Mulcahy discovers the final shocking twist hidden at the heart of his toughest case.It was his first case. Now, it will be his last. The only question is, can he uncover the truth in time?