A Cold Mind by David L. Lindsey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

" Particles of rat hair clung to his skin in various places from his forehead to his chin, as did reddish-gray smears and daubs of the rotting animal.

Evokes a truly yummy image, doesn't it? "Daubs of a rotting animal" has a nice cadence to it. Over a quarter of a century ago I read David L. Lindsey's Mercy and liked it very much. So I reached for A Cold Mind, an earlier (1983) book by the author, and got quite a bit disappointed. One of the publishers' blurbs screams in all capitals "DEFIES YOU TO PUT IT DOWN!" Well, putting the book down was not a problem for me - I managed to do it too many times. Picking the book up, though, was more of a problem. I found the novel overwrought, overlong, and quite a bit boring. Readers who like the 'serial killer' genre will rate the novel higher, I am sure. For me, it just barely reaches the minimum needed for marginally positive recommendation.

The novel is a police procedural with a slight components of psychology. Detective Stuart Haydon is investigating the death of a young woman found drowned in the Houston bayou. While the medical examiner suspects that the woman worked as a prostitute, the exact cause of death cannot be easily established. Soon connections emerge to recent deaths of two other women. All three were call girls and all three died after displaying signs of an illness that lasted several days.

From the web I have learned that this is the first novel in the Stuart Haydon series. I find this a little surprising since for me there is not much interesting about the detective's character. He is good at what he does, and seems to be an intelligent, experienced, and hard-working cop. Yes, he does have a dark secret, but I find laughable the author's efforts to furnish our protagonist with a memorable aspect of his persona. It feels to me like a crude attempt to entice the readers to buy next books in the series, where the secret will be explored in more detail and maybe even explained.

The detectives discover an album full of pictures that show "gloriously delicious" bodies of the call-girls involved in sexual activities. Particularly interesting are pictures taken through red, blue, and yellow filters - the colors will play some role in solution of the case.

My review sounds pretty vicious so far but the novel is not without strengths. I find it well written - in fact, very well for the police procedural genre - and I liked reading small snippets of text about Houston. I know the fourth largest city in the country only from driving through it: Mr. Lindsey's novel made me want to know it quite a lot better:

"The tunnels that honeycomb almost fifty blocks of downtown Houston and interconnect a fraternity of corporate buildings can be attributed not to a single Daedalus, but to a host of architects employed by the city's billionaire corporate powers. [...] the disparity of the design from block to block produces a true subterranean labyrinth."

I have also enjoyed repeated mentions of PCs (personal computers) used in police department. 1982/1983 were the very early days of the PC era.

If not for the accomplished writing and Houston bits A Cold Mind would not clear my threshold of recommendability.

Two-and-a-half stars.

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