River of Glass

River of Glass (Mystery)

By Jaden Terrell

ISBN #978-1579623609

The Permanent Press www.thepermanentpress.com

272 Pages

Price $29.00

Rating 5-Stars

“Will Keep The Reader Spellbound.”

Jared McKean is a former homicide detective with the Metro Nashville police department, now working as a private investigator out of a small office. When an Asian girl is discovered dead in a dumpster in the back alley of his office, he’s the first person they want to ask about it.  He’s not working on a case involving Asians and tells them that, but that changes within a few days when a maimed Vietnamese woman arrives at his doorstep saying she is his half-sister, and asks for help finding her missing daughter, Tuyet. Khan claims to be the daughter of McKean’s father, born when he served in the war.

The case involves flesh trafficking. Young Asian girls are kidnapped and held in a compound where rich customers can fulfill their sexual fantasies. If the girls do not behave, they are punished, and forced to live in horrible conditions. They are kept barefoot, and surrounding the compound is a sheet of broken glass, so they can’t escape. The dead girl in the dumpster has escaped with Tuyet’s help, and was trying to reach Jared McKean, whom she thought was Tuyet’s grandfather.  She was caught and killed before reaching him. McKean takes the case, though at first he’s hesitant about the Vietnamese connection to his dead father. Khan, with only one arm, and scars on her face from a land mine, will not leave his side during the investigation, and he comes to recognize her inner strength and courage to search for her daughter. They soon began to draw closer, but the case leads them into very dark places, and Jared must deal with the horror of the flesh trade while trying to uncover the whereabouts of Tuyet and other captives.

Even at close to 300 pages, this book was one of those rare novels that are fast-paced and moved so smoothly I read it in one sitting. The reader is pulled into the story from the first page, and the author keeps you spellbound to the last exciting page. I loved it. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Detective Mystery Stories