Steve Gannon: Kane: Blood Moon

Exciting, chilling  and emotional stuff - as good as it gets
Steve Gannon's KANE series has long been one of my favourite police procedural series as it combines exciting and gripping police action with a background of family love and tragedy. The fourth in the series, Blood Moon, has been 4 years coming, but the wait has been worth it.

The series focuses on Dan Kane, a top LAPD homicide detective who gets results, sometimes by doing his own thing upsetting his superiors and brings danger to his family. Dan Kane is still recovering from the shock of his wife's death from a sniper which has gutted his family especially his youngest son Nate.

When he is on vacation with his son following his former FBI partner Sara Taylor as she competes in a top white-water kayak race he takes 2 phone calls. One is an unknown caller using voice-changing software, quickly followed by a call from his Lieutenant who wants him back immediately to lead an investigation into a gruesome, sexually related and sadistic murder of a young woman found on the UCLA campus.

Kane is soon immersed in the chase for a possible serial killer who captures and imprisons his next victim just before killing his last one. This time the victim is the daughter of Lieutenant Sneed, Kane's long-term nemesis. The fact that Sneed has asked for Kane's help, despite their normal enmity, is emotionally realistic.

Gannon weaves an intricate description of the police chase with a chilling description of the serial killer, his depraved treatment of his victims and stalking his next victim at the time he is torturing his last victim. At the same time, he delves into Kane's painful revisiting of his wife's death and its impact on his life and that of his youngest son.

As usual, this is an emotional and vividly accurate police procedural. I have just finished reading Michael Connelly's latest book - "Dark Sacred Heart". As usual, this was a top quality police procedural, but my general conclusion is that compared to this book it was boring.

Thank you Steve for another exciting and emotionally gripping book. Highly recommended.

While you can read this book as a stand-alone story, you will appreciate it more if you read the earlier books in order because the Kane family details are so important.

This is an honest review of a book that was gifted to me by the author.

Steve Gannon: LA Sniper

Exciting and emotionally gripping - highly recommended
Steve Gannon's KANE series has long been one of my favourites - exciting and emotionally challenging. After "Song for the Asking", "Kane" and "Allison" I wondered how Gannon could keep up the pace with another book in the series. The answer is that Steve has hit the spot with a somewhat different book that focuses on Dan Kane but always has his family firmly nearby. While you can read this book as a stand-alone story, you will appreciate it more if you read the earlier books in order because the Kane family details are so important.

Dan Kane is a top homicide detective with the LAPD who gets results, sometimes by doing his own thing which upsets his superiors and his actions have also brought danger to his family. At home Kane has been a dominant father (his daughter Alison calls him "Dadzilla") and he has been through several shattering events with them, some of which he has not been able to cope with. Nate is the only child still permanently living at home and is going through a tough and angry adolescence that neither parent can completely understand.

Kane's autocratic dominance over his family is waning as his children grow up, and the family is glued together by shared traumatic experiences, love and respect, and a mutual love of music (Catheryn a cellist with the LA Philharmonic and eldest son Travis is studying at Juilliard). One evening they are all attending a concert where Catheryn performs stunningly as a solo cellist with the Philharmonic when Kane is called out urgently - someone has shot/assassinated two LA Patrolmen.

Kane quickly becomes a key part of  a huge task force led by Lieutenant Sneed, Kane's long term nemesis, searching for a very clever and deliberate assassin whose sole objective is to kill as many LA policemen as possible. The assassin is a master marksman, leaves no clues, alters his modus operandi to confuse and is always one step ahead of the police as the body count rises. As usual Kane eventually makes his own investigations against the advice of Sneed.

Steve Gannon delivers an extremely well written police procedural which has two unexpected brutal climaxes. As Kane is the principal player, Gannon's use of the first person in chapters about Kane is especially effective. He also leaves us with a final chapter about the Kane family that will gut your emotions (remember to keep the tissues handy if you are sensitive). Gannon also leaves us enough seeds in the story to make me believe that a possible future book might happen sometime - I look forward to that.

A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to get an Advanced Readers Copy of THE BURNING ROOM, the forthcoming Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly, While I rated that book as "a great police/crime novel by the finest (American) crime writer working today" I found it comparatively bland and vanilla when compared with LA SNIPER which now has a place in my top reads of 2014. Steve Gannon is a talented writer of crime/family adventure thrillers who deserves every success.

An Advanced Copy of this book was provided to me by the author for my honest review. While I have a regular email connection with Steve, I have never met or spoken with him and this review is an honest and personal assessment of this book.

Steve Gannon: Allison (A Kane Novel)

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Highly recommended - emotionally charged and well written
After "Song for the Asking" and "Kane" I wondered how Steve Gannon could keep up the pace with a book about Allison, Kane's only daughter. The answer is that Steve has written a somewhat different book which is one of the most emotional and compelling books I have read in a long time. While this book can be read as a stand-alone story, you will appreciate this book more if you read the earlier books in order.

The Kane series takes you on an emotional roller-coaster with an apparently dysfunctional family dominated by Dan Kane,  a tough and uncompromising homicide detective with LAPD.  Despite Kane's autocratic dominance (Allison calls him "Godzilla"), the family is glued together by shared experiences, love and respect, and they all follow without question the family dogma that "Kane's stand together, no matter what".

Allison, the only daughter, is approaching her 20th birthday and wants to spread her wings outside the family influence.  While she has a great strength to succeed instilled by her father, she is tortured by terrible emotional wounds from a violent sexual assault that she keeps hidden deep within her.  When by chance she gets offered a job in a local TV newsroom she comes head to head with her father's distrust and hatred of media interference with his work. At the same time the family faces what could potentially be its most devastating event since the death of Allison's elder brother.

While "Allison" contains a great homicide police procedural story, the main story is an emotional and adult coming of age story where Allison battles for independence from her family and to overcome her deep emotional wounds. Her dilemma is clear when her older brother Travis says to her "It's time for you to ask yourself what's really important. It's not school or work or any of these other things. It's family. It's the people you love and who love you."

A review of "Kane" said "Well done, Steve Gannon, you managed to emotionally flog me!"  This time the emotions were not so gut wrenching, but I do admit to "tearing up" a few times as Allison faced up to the challenges of her life and her relationship with her family. There are not many books that can have that kind of effect on me.

Well done Steve Gannon. You are an outstanding author who can outshine many of the most popular best-selling authors of the genre.

Steve Gannon: Kane (A Kane Novel)

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Kane's stand together again, no matter what

Once again Steve Gannon has written a very powerful, exciting and challenging page-turning novel, which is both spine chilling and personally emotional. Gannon has written a book which mixes intense family issues successfully with a well crafted police procedural/serial killer plot. Be warned - it is very much an adult novel with vivid scenes of sadistic serial murders but they are needed because they are central to the story.

In his first book "A Song for the Asking" (which I am glad that I read first) Steve Gannon introduced us to Dan Kane, who is a top Homicide Detective at LAPD who dominates his family like a marines training Sergeant.  Despite this his sons and daughter live in a family environment full of love and respect. They follow their father's strong beliefs that "Kane's stand together, no matter what"

When tragedy happens and his eldest son is killed in a climbing accident, Kane is the one who cracked and cannot stand together with his family.  At the start of this book, Kane's inability to cope with and share his grief impact seriously on his marriage and he is unable to help others in the family who also have to cope with the loss and have deep secrets that they are unable to share.

As an escape, Kane buries himself in his work - tracking down a clever and sadistic serial killer.  Kane is a rough and tough experienced detective who likes to do things in his own way and has little respect for bureaucracy.  While this helps him to progress the case it also eventually endangers himself, and also his family. In "Song for the Asking" Kane's police work was peripheral to his relationships with his family.  While family relationships are still important, this time Kane's police work takes precedence and threatens to impact on the family.

In the middle of all of this Gannon gives us a magical musical interlude when Kane's wife, a cellist with a symphony orchestra, has to take over a solo performance of Dvorak's Cello Concerto.  Gannon describes this with feeling and emotion - reflecting a saying from the earlier book -  "Although music can be many things ... music is the power to command emotion."

Kane is a non-stop action thriller, with surprising twists, and unforgettable conflicting scenes of horror and family love. It is a great read which I recommend strongly to anyone who likes a challenging story.  As I said after reading "Song for the Asking" - after a powerful book I need to read something lighter next, like a sorbet to cleanse the palate between courses.

Gannon's next book in the Kane series - "Allison" - also highly recommended.

Steve Gannon: A Song for the Asking (A Kane Novel)

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Song for the Asking - a powerful and emotional performance
Steve Gannon chose a powerful subject for his first novel - the effect of a dominant father on his family - and showed his considerable skills as an author. It is a testing read with emotional and physical child abuse, strong language and rape, but with an underlying theme of family love and togetherness. It is definitely an adult novel.

I found this book after seeing the sequel - Kane - promoted as a freebie. As soon as I started that book I knew that I had to read this book first to understand what had happened to Kane in Song for the Asking.

Dan Kane is a homicide detective in the LAPD who is rough, tough, and mostly successful. He brings his street strength philosophy home to his family of 4 great kids, and his wife (a classical chellist) whose lives he tries to  run like a Marines' boot camp.  While they all basically love him, they live in constant fear of his ridicule and power over them and consider themselves part of a "screwed-up family".

As in most families the siblings have different personalities.  Tommy, the eldest  has the athletic and physical skills of his father; his younger brother Travis has the artistic skills and sensitivity of mother and is potentially a prize-winning classical pianist. Ali, the only daughter is also artistic and in her early teens has already had a short-story published. The youngest brother, Nate, is overwhelmed and dominated by his father.

Kane tries to mould them into his ways, hurting all of them in the process but cementing them together in a way that he will probably never understand. Despite all this pressure they become a close family who believe "Kane's stand together, no matter what".

While part of this book is a police procedural about Kane's life in the LAPD this is really only background to Kane's personality and how it impacts on his family. The key element is the way his family handles stress and tragedies, and, when faced with the ultimate test, whether the family (and more importantly Kane himself) have the ability to cope and adjust.

The book has a couple of memorable lines that I have indexed because they are meaningful to me and show the word skills and sensitivities of the author and his devotion to classical music (his wife is a classical pianist and he promotes classical music locally).

"When you read, there are no limits; with a book you can bring vistas and textures and emotions to life that have a meaning to you and you alone" AND "Although music can be many things, in its truest incarnation, at its deepest core, music is the power to command emotion."

I gave this 5 stars because of these great lines and a fine and emotional performance by Steve Gannon in a first novel. The other books in the Kane series are also highly recommended (check them out via the author list).