The baseball term "sitting dead red" (a batter waiting for a specific fastball from a pitcher) takes a military connotation in Tim O'Mara's third Raymond Donne mystery. Ricky Torres, an Iraq War vet and friend from Donne's days on the police force, summons the ex-cop-turned-schoolteacher in the middle of the night. While seated in a taxi cab next to Donne, Torres is able to say only, "I made a mistake," before a shooter lying in wait--sitting dead red--assassinates him.
Donne barely escapes with his own life and is determined to find out who kill3e his friend, despite orders from the police chief to stay out of the investigation. Torres had been working part-time for another ex-cop, Jack Knight. Now a PI, Knight is looking into the disappearance of a public relations guru's teenage daughter. As Donne and Knight do their digging, each question begets another. Was the murder tied to this case? Did Torres make a mistake?
Well-timed twists and red herrings keep the pace of the layered Dead Red swift. The less-than-likable Knight plays a strong foil to the kind, empathetic protagonist. And quietly, beneath the boisterous mystery plot, O'Mara studies the complexity and strength of a police family as it deals with the death of one of its own. Mystery readers unfamiliar with O'Mara's work won't have trouble starting with Dead Red, but they'll likely find themselves enamored with Raymond Donne's world and heading back for the previous titles in the series (Sacrifice Fly and Crooked Numbers). --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts