Inside Man by John McMahon Book Review

About the Book:

FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve.

PAR’s latest case involves a militia group stockpiling weapons. When their confidential informant in the case is killed, it quickly becomes clear that the militia did not kill him.

As the squad looks into the evidence surrounding his murder, an unidentified man is caught on camera with their informant. This mystery man’s picture is connected to another case at the FBI, an unsolved series of murdered women, buried in the ground in north Florida. Could they have uncovered a serial killer? And if so, what is his connection to their C.I.?

As PAR juggles an investigation into both the dead women and the militia, they enroll a new informant, only to find the case escalating in dangerous ways. How will PAR handle a case that increasingly looks like a terrorist plot? And in the serial case, with no puzzles or witnesses, and few leads, how will a group set up to decode riddles be successful?

My Review:

The strength of these PAR (Pattern and Recognition) FBI novels is twofold. First, I really like the characters. They are quirky in a good way. They are able to see connections others cannot so are able to solve puzzling cases. Second, the mysteries are good and it is fun to pit myself against the characters, to see if I can make connections as well as they can.

The pace of the novel is good as the team has to solve two separate cases that eventually relate to each other. This is the second novel in the series and it may not have had the same impact on me as the first one since I was now familiar with the unusual characters. There is a little more fleshing out Gardner's character, including his mother with Alzheimer's and his daughter who has acted up at school.

This is a good FBI investigative novel with quirky characters and twists in the plot.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

You can read my review of the first book in the series, Head Cases. 

About the Author:

The New York Times called John McMahon’s debut novel, The Good Detective “pretty much perfect” and listed it among their “Top Ten Crime Novels of 2019.” The book was a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, both for Best First Novel. Head Cases is his fourth novel. John currently lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids and a rescue dog. He splits his time between crime writing and his day job in advertising. Photo credit: Nathaniel Chadwick.

Minotaur Books, 400 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. Mine is an independent review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)