crime novels

DOOMED LEGACY BY MATT COYLE: P.I. BATTLES TRAUMA WHILE INVESTIGATING MURDER

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

May 21, 2023 (San Diego) – In San Diego author Matt Coyle’s latest crime novel, private investigator Rick Cahill has become a father and husband. Having lived a tough life as an athlete and P.I., Rick’s repeated head traumas are paying their toll. He now has chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease that gives him moments of fugues and moments of out-of-control rage. Treatments are not working out; he hides his disease from his family.

In this passage,  he shares his troubled thoughts:


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THE BODY IN THE BARREL: AUTHOR OF SAN DIEGO CRIME NOVEL TO HOLD LOCAL SIGNING DEC. 8

 

By Richard G. Opper

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

December 4, 2022 (San Diego) -- The Body in the Barrel is a compelling crime novel set in 1973 in San Diego.

The book opens on October 15, 1973: “I shifted the Smith & Wesson Model 10 to a more comfortable place on my hip, which was feeling tender this morning. The bay had a smell of rotting plants, and together with the smell of the diesel it triggered thoughts about the Mekong—which was not so long ago, even if it was half a world away. It was the reason my hip ached, but that life was over. I was back home in San Diego, and glad for it. Whatever I’d thought I was going to accomplish in the Navy’s swift boats turned out to be a bad dream. A nightmare. So, the fact that I ended up in the Harbor Police is a whole lot better—but still a whole lot of not much. I was out of the shit storm and into a more peaceful life, but for crying out loud, at twenty-eight here I was with nothing really going on, already going nowhere. But who cared? Other than my dad, I guess, and that only went so far.”


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.