Former detective Stacy Dittrich uses her experience and an old case to start her crime-writing career on, in THE DEVIL’S CLOSET. For a book that kicks off a series, it reads as though it should have been the second, since throughout, she refers to a huge case she was part of, in which pretty most of her characters had an important role.
To add a bit more backstory, it seems as if the precinct is based on a nighttime soap, with all the married characters cheating on their spouses with other police officers. You would need a flowchart to keep it all straight. Okay, it’s not that confusing, but it’s these portions that lost me every so often. I would have much rather have had Dittrich slowly introduce her plots and the people involved.
Onto the crime itself, which is truly disturbing and engrossing: a child killer who meticulously captured kids off the street for years. He is refereed to as “the doll man,” since he paints up his victims like a doll, right down to the overuse of paint and makeup on the dead children. While Detective CeeCee Gallagher works on tracking down this killer, she deals with an FBI agent she slept with a year ago, and deals with her husband, a fellow cop who is sleeping with his partner. Again, all this soap opera drama dragged me out of the story a few too many times.
Now, Dittrich has the suspense angle down pat, with a killer not only being this mastermind, but challenging the cops throughout, even to the point of demanding that CeeCee be put in charge. When his demand is not met, the killer takes another child — this time the daughter of a high-ranking government official.
CeeCee is not the typical rogue cop who plays by her own rules, but she is written as a strong female archetype with a sense of justice — a nice change of pace. My only request is that maybe she should have made all the backstory which is discussed as her first novel, since we would have a better understanding of everyone involved. Still, CLOSET is a valid debut from a woman who speaks from experience. —Bruce Grossman
