UNKNOWN MEANS
Elizabeth Becka
Hyperion
Thriller
ISBN: 9781401301750

Elizabeth Becka knows Cleveland, and intimately so. Though she has left that city's Coroner’s Office for the more hospitable climes of Cape Coral, Florida, to work as a police forensic specialist, there is little, if anything, about her former home that has escaped her memory.

Becka’s debut novel, 2007’s TRACE EVIDENCE, garnered popular and critical acclaim on multiple levels, from its dead-on portrayal of the widely diverse neighborhoods of Cleveland to Evelyn James, the tough and tender heroine who balances her professional life as a forensic specialist in the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office with her personal life as a single mother of a teenaged daughter. Becka, James and the City of Cleveland return in UNKNOWN MEANS, wherein Becka combines classic mystery elements with contemporary thriller themes to provide her growing number of readers with another winner.

Grace Markham, one of the wealthy ladies who lunch, is found dead in the penthouse suite that she shares with her husband. The suite is located in a high-end, high-security building, the door wasn’t forced open and the building’s surveillance system shows absolutely nothing untoward. The number one suspect in Markham’s murder, her husband, has an airtight alibi as well, even though he has a strong motive for wanting her life to end. When another woman is found dead across town in Lakewood, an old-money neighborhood, and a close friend of James is also attacked, it becomes clear that what had appeared to be an extremely unfortunate but nonetheless random series of events isn’t necessarily random at all.

Cleveland homicide detective David Milaski is assigned to investigate the murders, which, given James’s personal and tumultuous involvement with him, causes professional and emotional complications for both of them, not the least of which concern James’s daughter, who is caught between feeling neglected and seeking adolescent independence. Dogged police work and some interesting forensic studies bring James and Milaski closer to the killer, resulting in an exciting and claustrophobic conclusion that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Becka apparently departed Cleveland with a suitcase full of notes regarding the minutiae of the city, both political and personal, as she never seems to miss a beat when intertwining the cultural background of one of America’s most quietly intriguing metropolises with a first-rate mystery puzzle. And that forensic element in the book? You’ll never go into a high-rise office building without thinking, at least twice, about UNKNOWN MEANS. I can’t wait for the third installment.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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