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by James Queally
The debut novel from award-winning crime reporter James Queally. All favors come with a cost, and after using what little favors he has in the Newark PD to get his private investigators license, former crime reporter Russell Avery finds himself paying.
He spends his days reluctantly keeping sideways cops out of the crosshairs of the Internal Affairs department. Until Keyonna Jackson, a social justice activist, presents him with a troubling video: a made-for-Youtube cell phone snippet chronicling the same kind of questionable use-of-force that had set New York City, Ferguson, and Cleveland on fire in recent years. The same use-of-force that he's been covering up for Newark PD.
Now, the young black man who filmed this video is dead and the more questions Russell asks, the less his cop buddies like him. For the first time in his life, Russell finds himself on the wrong side of the guys with the badges and guns. When details of the shooting become public―and a city with race riots in its DNA flirts with the idea of letting history repeat itself―Russell finds himself allying with street activists and gang members as he races to put together the biggest story of his life…before the city he needs to tell it to burns down around him.
"[I]mpressive...This scalding exposé of human failures, in which friendships go tragically sour, powerfully updates Raymond Chandler's mean streets. Queally is definitely a writer to watch." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The use-of-force theme is sadly contemporary, and Queally knows all the players and their world: cops, lawyers, guns, and the drug trade. An excellent debut from a strong new voice in crime fiction." - Booklist (starred review)
"Overall, the various factions neatly represent public voices in the broader discussion of crime and responsibility, and to that degree the novel is formulaic. If the minor characters lack authenticity and their dialogue all sounds similar, Avery's first-person voice is strong and distinct, and his moral quandaries are real and immediate. A creditable debut thriller, if a little too neat." - Kirkus Reviews
"Line of Sight signals the start of a great career. Veteran journalist James Queally brings all his insider knowledge of the intersections of crime and police and politics and media in a story that never stands still for a single page. It's an amazing first novel." - Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Harry Bosch series
"A knockout debut. Smart, gritty and as timely as tomorrow's front page." - Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Lock Every Door
"James Queally draws on current events, and his own experience as a crime reporter, to write Line of Sight—and the result is a thoughtful, timely page-turner that explores the twisted corridors of authority from a street-level view, while never losing sight of the larger issues of truth and justice." - Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse and the Ash McKenna series
This information about Line of Sight was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Queally is an award-winning crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Throughout his career, Queally has covered hundreds of homicides, as well as national use-of-force controversies and the Black Lives Matter Movement. His short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Crime Syndicate Magazine, Shotgun Honey and more. Line of Sight is his debut novel.
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