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THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES is the ninth of Ridley Pearson's novels featuring Seattle Police Detectives Lou Boldt and Daphne Matthews. Pearson has infused these books with a number of interesting elements and has reached the point where he can pick and choose among them so that each new offering in the series is familiar yet never predictable. The series is set in Seattle, one of the more fascinating cities in the United States, so that Pearson can build his story around a point of interest (as he did so brilliantly in THE ART OF DECEPTION, for example). He can feature either Boldt or Matthews as the focal point of the story, or alternate between the two. Given the longevity of the series, Pearson can also reach into the past and use it as a propellant for a story set in the present.
THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES is primarily a Boldt book. Actually, that's not quite accurate, as a great deal of the novel concerns Boldt's wife Liz. Lou and Liz hit a rough patch several years previous to the events in THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES. It was during this period that Lou had a brief fling with Daphne Matthews and Liz had an affair with David Hayes, a brilliant computer specialist at Seattle's WestCorp Bank, where Liz is an executive. Lou and Liz were each aware of the other's infidelity; neither of them knew the identity of the other's partner. After Liz ended her affair with Hayes, he embarked on a scheme at the behest of the Russian Mafia wherein he used his computer skills to steal 17 million dollars from WestCorp. The money was never recovered.
Hayes is now out on parole and is seeking to recover the money, and with good reason: he has been put on notice by the Russian mob that his life is in danger if he cannot retrieve it. His intrusion back into Liz's life is sudden and dramatic. Hayes cannot recover the money without access to the inner computer workings of the bank, and Liz is his only way in. What is worse from Liz's standpoint is that her affair with Hayes will be revealed if she does not assist him. Liz, torn between protecting the bank and keeping her family safe, goes to Lou and confesses her prior involvement with Hayes as well as the potential for blackmail, which, of course, will affect Lou as well.
Pearson sets up a neat and interesting dichotomous situation here, whereby Lou has to compartmentalize his feelings as a jealous husband from his job as a law enforcement officer. Complicating matters is the Russian Mafia, who is squeezing Hayes physically and Liz emotionally, and Danny Foreman, a Washington State BCI investigator who is an old friend of the Boldts but whose investigation into Hayes's activities puts him at odds with Lou. The story races to a conclusion in which Lou attempts to orchestrate several different scenarios that take place simultaneously, all with the aim of preventing the recovery of the money while attempting to protect Liz from the terrible danger she is in.
Pearson in THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES has once again worked his unique magic, creating a plausible high-tech tale that never gets bogged down in the minutiae of computer jargon while playing his characters' emotions off of each other. The ultimate effects on Lou and Liz Boldt of the events that take place in THE BODY OF DAVID HAYES are left ambiguous at the end of the novel and will undoubtedly unfold in later installments of this series, providing both an expectation for the future and a realistic touch upon the personal lives of the characters. One is left truly caring about what will happen to these people; the ability to instill this emotion in his readers is, perhaps, Pearson's greatest strength in his formidable literary arsenal.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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