The Betrayed by
David Hosp
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
I always enjoy reading books set in D.C. Settling into the dark gritty streets of the city always makes me feel like I have been transported to Gotham City and I wait to see the Dark Knight lurking around the corner. It’s my love of D.C.’s grime that drew me to The Betrayed and made it such an entertaining read that kept me engaged from beginning to end.
There was a parade of characters that marched across the pages, each unique - telling the story from their point of view. Even the bad guys had their turn telling you their story!
Sergeant Deter Train and Detective Jack Cassian are the well-intentioned D.C. police officers assigned to the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Creay. The police officers were as different as night and day, typical of partners in this kind of tale, but the author kept their relationship and back-stories from feeling overly stale or hackneyed. I felt comfortable with both of them immediately, savored the snarky humor both Deter and Jack shared, and appreciated the dedication they had to their jobs and the people in their lives.
The Chapin/Creay Women – Lydia, Elizabeth, Sydney and Amanda were intriguing. Although Amanda featured early, it was Lydia and Sydney who represented the women most strongly. The loss of Elizabeth was a blow felt by all the women very deeply and very differently. Lydia Chapin the iron-willed matriarch was the rock that her daughters and grand daughter crashed against. Lydia was unflappable and she had my sympathy most of all, because in the midst of a terrible tragedy and loss, Lydia’s motherly instincts were smothered by her sense of propriety. No parent ever wants to bury his or her child, but for Lydia Chapin, burying her first-born child was another engagement penned into her planner. Sydney felt the most loss, as she mourned the death of a sister whom she’d grown apart from. The two women were just beginning to rekindle their sisterly bonds, when the unthinkable happened. Now Sydney is left with thoughts of what could have been. Sydney’s involvement in the investigation of her sister’s death did not have as direct a path as I would have liked. She seemed to fall into the investigation by sheer happenstance and through very unconventional and almost improbable means.
Of particular interest to me was the fact that with the exception of the two police officers in the case, all the male characters in the story were nefarious beings in one way or another. For each reveal that David Hosp deigned to give, there was another mystery waiting to take its place. And while the story could have survived without it, the romance between Jack and Sydney was a nice side story that did not detract from the main tale.
All in all, The Betrayed was a great read. Pop culture read that accomplishes the task of entertaining you and engaging you. Not a book for my physical or virtual bookshelf – this was a library read, but if you come across it in the marked down section of your local bookstore, you won’t regret picking it up.
3 of 5 stars
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