Hanging the Devil (Cape Weathers Mysteries Book 5)

I recently read the book Hanging The Devil by Tim Maleeny.

Here’s a summary of the book.

It was supposed to be a simple job: steal the paintings, leave the forgeries…

When a helicopter crashes through the skylight of the Asian Art Museum, an audacious heist turns into a tragedy. The only witness to the crash is eleven-year-old Grace, who watches in horror as her uncle is killed and a priceless statue stolen by two men and a—ghost? At least that’s how the eerie, smoke-like figure with parchment skin and floating hair appears to Grace. Scared almost to death, she flees into the night and seeks refuge in the back alleys of San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Grace is found by Sally Mei, self-appointed guardian of Chinatown. While Sally trains Grace in basic survival skills, her erstwhile partner Cape Weathers, private detective and public nuisance, searches for the mysterious crew behind the robbery before they strike the museum a second time. As the clock winds down, Cape enlists aid from some unlikely allies to lay a trap for a ghost who has no intention of being caught—nor of leaving any witnesses alive to tell the tale.

The story begins with the young Grace witnessing the helicopter crash through the skylight of the museum and her uncle getting killed. She runs into Sally and when she hears Grace’s story, Sally decides to investigate it with the help of Cape Weathers. This book is a police procedural with Sally and Cape taking the lead in solving the mystery of who robbed the museum and also of the person responsible for the death of Grace’s uncle.

The story moves at a good pace. The author wastes no time in getting to the point. I found the writing to be crisp and to the point. The narrative flows easily. I especially liked the way how the author began a new chapter with a word that was used in the last sentence of the previous one- very creative. Also, love the cover!

The drawback of the book, if you could call it that, was that the story didn’t seem to have a grip. After a point, it just felt that the story was going on and on with one event after the other without any interesting nugget to hold on to. It lacked a sense of mystery after a point.

Nevertheless, the book makes for a fine read. The author has several books to his credit, you can check them out on Amazon.