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Fans of the true crime genre will appreciate this story of a police detective's decades-long effort to obtain justice for a homicide victim. The book opens with the brutal, 1976 Valentine's Day murder of Jeffrey Hart in his Cleveland apartment. As young detective Hal DeBoe's investigation unfolds, a prime suspect, Stan Radnic, is quickly identified but will remain at large for years, free to commit other crimes that include a horrific assault on Hart's fiancé.
Although written in the "just-the-facts-ma'am" style one expects in a police report, author DeBoe's compassion for victims of crime is apparent, blending meticulous attention to detail with sensitivity to suffering throughout the book. The author provides fact-based insight into police procedures and honestly describes both successes and mistakes as he tracks Radnic's movements from Ohio to Florida to Virginia to Tennessee, and eventually Nevada. He notes the stark differences in present-day versus 1970s technology and forensics, and voices rightful frustrations with bureaucratic and political decisions that make justice elusive.
Along the way, he sprinkles in anecdotes from his boyhood, his time in Vietnam as a Marine, and his nearly twenty-four-year career in law enforcement, creating a picture of a man who is doggedly determined, has an admirable sense of humor, and is committed to seeking justice. In that way, the narrative serves as both a true-crime chronicle and a memoir, though the author carefully keeps the case, its victims, and a heinous perpetrator front and center throughout. The result is an interesting book that keeps the reader's attention.