Becoming Quinn by Brett Battles

Jake Oliver is a bright-eyed, ambitious, twenty two year old rookie officer with the Phoenix Police Department. While out on patrol with his training officer one evening they are dispatched to the location of a 911 call requesting officer assistance. Upon arriving at the remote location they find a barn engulfed in flames and call in the fire department.

While waiting, Jake conducts a walk around of the property and notices some odd details – including a cable-like indention in the ground leading to the building – and takes photos of what he finds. After the fire is extinguished a search of the building reveals a dead body, one that wasn’t killed by the fire. The detectives investigating the case quickly chalk it up to something drug related, but Jake isn’t convinced.

So, with the assistance of another rookie officer, Jake begins his own investigation. Little could he have known that his search for the truth would reveal more than what happened to the victim, it would reveal Jake’s own future.

Becoming Quinn, the latest offering from the prolific Brett Battles, is the book equivalent of one of those behind the scenes “Making Of” features you get on DVDs. Except in this case instead of seeing how the movie was made, you get to learn how “cleaner” Jonathan Quinn was made. And what a thrilling process it is.

The fast-paced story unfolds through the alternating perspectives of Jake and a cleaner/operative named Durrie (those familiar with the Jonathan Quinn series will recognize that name), whose organization is responsible for the dead body in the barn. As Jake painstakingly pieces together the clues he finds, Durrie watches in amazement and disbelief at what Jake is able to accomplish through his uncanny instincts, highly attuned powers of observation, and sheer bullheaded determination. And the closer Jake gets to the truth, the more apparent it becomes to Durrie that Jake will have to be dealt with, one way or another.

If you’ve never read any of the Jonathan Quinn series, Becoming Quinn provides you with a unique entry into the series that will let you hit the ground running when you move on (and you will) to the first full length novel, The Cleaner. And of course those who are already fans of Quinn will love getting even more of his backstory than we got a glimpse of in his last outing, The Silenced.

Becoming Quinn is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, and includes as a bonus the first chapter of Watch Me Die by Lee Goldberg.