Rick Cahill Series, Book 7
From the publisher:
Anthony, Shamus, and Lefty Award-winning Author!
A friend arrested for murder. A vicious killer lurking in the shadows. A world of darkness.
Blinded by a gunshot wound to the face while working as a private investigator nine months ago, Rick Cahill is now sure of only one thing: he has to start a new life and leave his old one behind.
He’s still trying to figure out what that life is when his onetime partner, Moira MacFarlane, asks for his help on a case she’s taken for Rick’s former best friend. The case is simple and Moira only needs Rick for one interview, but Rick is wary of waking sleeping demons.
Ultimately, he goes against his gut and takes the case which quickly turns deadly. Rick’s old compulsion of finding the truth no matter the cost—the same compulsion that cost him his eyesight and almost his life—battles against his desire to escape his past.
The stakes are raised when Rick’s friend is implicated in murder and needs his help. Can he help the friend he no longer trusts while questioning his own lessened capabilities? His life depends on the answer as a shadowy killer lurks in the darkness.
Rick Cahill is a private detective and the principal character in Matt Coyle’s novels about him. The books can each stand alone, although Rick has been developed throughout the series. He began as a member of the La Jolla, California police department when his eventful life began with the murder of his wife. Rick was a suspect in the murder but was not arrested due to lack of evidence. He was forced to leave the police force and subjected to the feeling by many of his fellow officers that he did kill the woman and is getting away with murder. Over time Cahill has worked on different cases as a private detective, solved them, and become a fine example of the classic hard-boiled detective.
In the novel prior to “Blind Vigil,” Rick finds his wife’s killer but is wounded in a fight with him and suffers from blindness. This condition has, of course, forced him to retire from his work and he is kept home accompanied by his dog and the occasional visits of his new love Leah. She has a growing business in a different area of the state and has to attend it and unable to move in with Rick on a permanent basis.
Moira MacFarlane, who was Rick’s partner at one time, approaches him asking for help. She has been hired by Rick’s good friend and former boss at a restaurant and asked to investigate the man’s girlfriend with an eye to determine if she is cheating on him. Moira explains that it would be advantageous to have Rick take part since he is good friends with the man and it would be easier to help with the situation by adding a bit of the personal to the equation. The investigation develops into a murder case and Rick must take part in the investigation even though he is blind. In the same way that Matt Coyle has made Rick come alive in all the prior novels featuring him, he successfully does the same with him as someone that cannot see. This is very well done and does represent some painstaking questioning and research into the world of the blind in order to logically work on what is a complicated case.
12/2020 Paul Lane
BLIND VIGIL by Matt Coyle. Oceanview Publishing (December 1, 2020). ISBN: 978-1608094004. 336 pages.
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