RACING THE DEVIL

Who framed Jared McKean? Could’ve been anyone. After all, he’s an ex-cop.

While he was a serving officer with the Nashville PD, Jared locked up plenty of bad guys. In fact, that’s where his mind flashes first when he realizes how jammed up he is. But then he decides that the frame’s just too seamless, too elaborate. Among those Jared’s jailed, there’s no one with that kind of ambition. For starters, Nashville PD actually has his voice on tape threatening the victim; there’s a mess of his fingerprints where they shouldn’t be, plus evidence bags full of DNA and other damning material. If Jared were still a cop, he’d cuff himself in a minute. Yet the truth is that he’d never even set eyes on Amanda Jean Hartwell, much less fired a lethal bullet into her. So if his nemesis isn’t a lowlife with a grudge, what’s behind the frame? Though that’s certainly the most pressing question, it’s not the only one Jared struggles to resolve. There’s the problem of how to be an ex-husband to a woman he can’t stop loving and how to let some other man be a proper father to his adored young son. And though he can’t solve either of these, Jared has to shove them to the back burner while he dervishes to figure out who he’s made so homicidally vengeful.

Forgive the plot holes for the sake of a bright new talent feeling her way into a promising series.