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Blacking Out by Chip Mosher

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The fact that John Wick was on the cover caught my attention but it wasn't John and the main character, Conrad, didn't look like John much, just your generic 70s era mustached hairy dude. Connie is a disgraced cop (alcoholic) trying to survive now as an investigator for a lawyer. His current case is the death of a young woman whose father is on trial for killing her. His boss is the defense lawyer and wants enough to cause doubt in the jury.

Her death was awful, being badly battered and set on fire which has touched off a huge California fire (less common back in that time period than they are today.) Connie sees this as his way back on the force if he can solve it but he doesn't come to that conclusion until he meets a woman in a bar and this is where it went off the rails for me.

She tells him (spoilers) the next morning, no they didn't have sex because he was so drunk he passed out and peed the bed. And then tells him to go shower up because she didn't bring him home for no reason. Then they have sex. I strained eye muscles rolling them so hard. No, that's just not how it works. I'm not sure I've ever known a woman who'd do that with a complete stranger (especially after the piss the bed incident) Much later we learn she's not as much a stranger as we're led to believe.

Now inspired by this woman, Connie dives in. His methods are straight up police brutality down to breaking fingers to get information. He's gross. The story is dark and the ending is worse. Yeah I'm not sure why I didn't bail after the sex incident. I should have.



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