Review: Close to Home

Close to Home by Robert Dugoni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a heartbreaker--the drug crisis is such a human tragedy that has touched the lives of so many of every race, creed and economic status. No one is immune and we are so grateful our child has not succumbed to its allure though many of her peers and our former students have or have had relatives addicted. Just sitting here for a minute to think about it, I can recall the loss of at least two within the last six months and four who are battling to kick the habit. The fact that the cartels have plowed the marijuana fields and turned them into poppy fields is devastating. How are we ever going to get out of this situation? Del and his new lady friend debate the issue but even though they come to the conclusion that arresting and jailing addicts is not solving the problem, I don't see that they came up with a solid new approach.

Though this is the underlying theme of the book it runs through the story of tragic deaths of kids--the first a 12 year old boy killed in a hit and run on his way home from playing basketball, the second the overdose of Del's niece and eventually two of her friends. Del's friend, a lawyer is the mother of another boy who overdosed before she relocated to Seattle. The hit and run and Allie's overdose are handled as two cases until it turns out that the driver of the car has a connection to both cases. How they overlap is convoluted and hard to untangle.

I don't know if I'm reading too much Dugoni or if I'm just a great investigator but when a piece of evidence disappears I knew immediately who had taken it though I could not figure out why. That is until the very first appearance of the main culprit,who I fingered within seconds of its--don't want to give any hints--entry into the room. I managed both ID's at the halfway point of the story BUT wasn't sure how it was all managed or the connection between the two. One could say, I didn't have any hard evidence--lol --so needed to finish the book--not a hardship at all.

On to the next installment--looks like Tracy and Dan's life will be changing soon!!

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