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San Francisco is the type of city that makes for a natural setting for a murder mystery. The fog-shrouded buildings, the rolling streets, and the marked diversity of its citizens seem to have been created expressly for mystery, intrigue, and suspense. Writers from Dashiell Hammett to Robert B. Parker to D.W. Buffa have used San Francisco either during part of or the entirety of one or more novels, and to wonderful effect.
SACRIFICE is the third of Clyde Phillips's novels to feature San Francisco Police Inspector Jane Candiotti. SACRIFICE is a study in contrast: it begins with the murder of Philip Iverson, a man wealthy almost beyond imagining, on the most gratifying night of his life. It is followed closely by the murder of Willie Temple, a man whose life has been on a downward spiral for decades. Candiotti's homicide team --- a team that includes her husband, detective Kenny Marks --- is assigned to both homicides. Iverson's murder is given the expected priority, yet Candiotti, despite pressure from the mayor on down, refuses to simply neglect Temple's murder, even when there is subtle pressure to do so. As the murders of both of these very different men are investigated, it is slowly but painstakingly determined that neither their lives nor their deaths are quite what they seemed to be.
Candiotti's team, through good, old-fashioned police work, also discovers the tenuous, random connection between the men that resulted in the death of one of them, a discovery that places Candiotti in life-threatening danger from two wholly unexpected sources. Phillips plays the story out against the stark backdrop of a city that suffers from a slow internal decay, while nonetheless maintaining an external beauty and keeping the reader on a roller coaster ride of suspense. Phillips also continues to develop the characters, and relationship, of Candiotti and Marks. Their professional and personal relationships do not always mesh well --- Nick and Nora, they're not --- but Phillips infuses them with a willingness to make things work that is at once refreshing and realistic.
SACRIFICE continues the tradition that began with FALL FROM GRACE and BLINDSIDED, while furthering the development and evolution of Candiotti and Marks. Phillips's ability and inclination to keep his characters fresh and yet familiar bodes well for future volumes of this series --- and for Phillips's growing number of readers. Recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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