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Agent Down
A crime novel, part of the Detective Macaulay series, where the murder of a woman leads Macaulay and those working with her to a large, dangerous, criminal organization.
89 pages, ebook
First published September 19, 2013
About the author
Ruby Binns-Cagney
49 books18 followersRuby Binns-Cagney is a successful Author who writes police procedural-based crime thrillers.
Ruby also writes women's contemporary literature, and non-fiction self-help guides from her Company, Phoenix Relationship Coaching.
Follow NYPD's Detective Macaulay on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/detmacaulay (@DetMacaulay)
Facebook Pages:
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorRubyBin...
Finkel Macaulay
http://www.facebook.com/finkelmacaulay
Nick Benson
http://www.facebook.com/SpecialAgentN...
Contact Ruby for more details about her latest books, and industry news on self-publishing.
Ruby also writes women's contemporary literature, and non-fiction self-help guides from her Company, Phoenix Relationship Coaching.
Follow NYPD's Detective Macaulay on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/detmacaulay (@DetMacaulay)
Facebook Pages:
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorRubyBin...
Finkel Macaulay
http://www.facebook.com/finkelmacaulay
Nick Benson
http://www.facebook.com/SpecialAgentN...
Contact Ruby for more details about her latest books, and industry news on self-publishing.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 13, 2013
Agent Down, by Ruby Binns-Cagney, is a crime thriller. When Stacey, a woman Stanley Tulloch is having an affair with is murdered in Las Vegas and he is accused of the crime, it sets a series of events, at first seeming unrelated, to unfold. He calls on his friend Nick for help, not realizing Nick’s wife, Finkel Macaulay, is in town working on another investigation.
If it starts to sound confusing, the confusion has barely started, both for Finkel Macaulay, the protagonist, and the reader, who ends up reading what approaches stream of consciousness writing. For a book of this length there are a huge number of characters with significant roles. The point of view shifts rapidly and constantly. As a further complication Macaulay’s nightmares blend in with actual events and both the times and places things are happening shift wildly, jumping from the present to a year in the past to a month in the past and back to the present.
What starts with a seemingly simple murder evolves into an investigation of white slavery, forced prostitution, illegal arms dealing, and police corruption. It is difficult for Macaulay, or the reader, to know who to trust. Even a surveillance tape showing Stacey’s murder and showing the men involved, neither of them Stanly, doesn’t clear him. As is demonstrated later in Agent Down, such tapes can be faked. Ultimately everything comes together and works out, although not without casualties. The title Agent Down comes probably comes from the number of times the phrase is used in the novel.
A problem some readers might face is the fact Agent Down is part of a series. Events and people presumably in other books from the series are referred to, but to someone who hasn’t read those books the references are nebulous. The alternative would have been for Binns-Cagney to have recapped those things in detail, boring people who had read the other books. It is a built-in problem with any series, but in this case nothing to worry about. The book stands well alone.
While many of the methods used by Macaulay and others in the book are, at best, dubious from the aspect of proper law enforcement in the United States, one only has to watch television shows dealing with fictional crime or read other crime novels to know this is the norm, rather than the exception, in crime thrillers.
A major plus for Agent Down, and for Binns-Cagney, is the depth of her characters. None of the major characters are one dimensional, all showing strengths and weaknesses and coming across as real people. Even brief mentions of medical problems such a hypertension, common enough in people in high stress professions and ignored by most writers in the genre, are mentioned by Binns-Cagney, adding a bit more realism than many such novels manage.
If it starts to sound confusing, the confusion has barely started, both for Finkel Macaulay, the protagonist, and the reader, who ends up reading what approaches stream of consciousness writing. For a book of this length there are a huge number of characters with significant roles. The point of view shifts rapidly and constantly. As a further complication Macaulay’s nightmares blend in with actual events and both the times and places things are happening shift wildly, jumping from the present to a year in the past to a month in the past and back to the present.
What starts with a seemingly simple murder evolves into an investigation of white slavery, forced prostitution, illegal arms dealing, and police corruption. It is difficult for Macaulay, or the reader, to know who to trust. Even a surveillance tape showing Stacey’s murder and showing the men involved, neither of them Stanly, doesn’t clear him. As is demonstrated later in Agent Down, such tapes can be faked. Ultimately everything comes together and works out, although not without casualties. The title Agent Down comes probably comes from the number of times the phrase is used in the novel.
A problem some readers might face is the fact Agent Down is part of a series. Events and people presumably in other books from the series are referred to, but to someone who hasn’t read those books the references are nebulous. The alternative would have been for Binns-Cagney to have recapped those things in detail, boring people who had read the other books. It is a built-in problem with any series, but in this case nothing to worry about. The book stands well alone.
While many of the methods used by Macaulay and others in the book are, at best, dubious from the aspect of proper law enforcement in the United States, one only has to watch television shows dealing with fictional crime or read other crime novels to know this is the norm, rather than the exception, in crime thrillers.
A major plus for Agent Down, and for Binns-Cagney, is the depth of her characters. None of the major characters are one dimensional, all showing strengths and weaknesses and coming across as real people. Even brief mentions of medical problems such a hypertension, common enough in people in high stress professions and ignored by most writers in the genre, are mentioned by Binns-Cagney, adding a bit more realism than many such novels manage.
Displaying 1 of 1 review