Beyond Blue

by Austin S. Camacho

Beyond Blue is a mosaic police procedural novel about a privately funded detective agency that only takes cases to help police officers who are in trouble.


The novel follows four of the agency’s cases, which overlap and An undercover officer is in danger of really being drawn into a life of crime, a crooked lawyer is destroying police careers by making arresting officers appear to have violated criminals’ rights, a cop’s wife accuses him of abusing their daughter, and a retired police detective who is now in charge of airport security could lose his job because of drugs being smuggled in through JFK International.


To defend the boys and girls in blue when they are in danger, sometimes you have to go beyond blue.

Genres: Detective

ebook

First published August 31, 2014

About the author

Austin S. Camacho is the author of six novels about Washington Dc-based private eye Hannibal Jones, five in the Stark and O’Brien international adventure-thriller series, and the detective novel, Beyond Blue. His short stories have been featured in several anthologies including Dying in a Winter Wonderland – an Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Top Ten Bestseller for 2008 - and he is featured in the Edgar nominated African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey.

Camacho is deeply involved with the writing community. He is a past president of the Maryland Writers Association, past Vice President of the Virginia Writers Club, and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime.

Reviews

[RJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not your average crime thriller. I’ve had several not-your-average books lately. This one is about a private detective agency called Beyond Blue Investigations (B.B.I.), which is financed by a wealthy grateful recipient of police intervention. Beyond Blue’s mission is to help police officers in trouble. We are presented with four active cases where Beyond Blue’s agents are helping officers out of their particular problems. The story is interesting and unique, the characters and B.B.I. agents likable for the most part. If this becomes an ongoing series, it will no doubt be composed of various situations to be resolved. There are a few logic holes to be ignored, otherwise not bad. Three.point.five for a good start. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm utterly astounded by the poor production of this audiobook. It's adequately performed by Allan Callaway, but there are numerous outtakes remaining in the audiobook that should have been edited out. I heard at least 3 in the first chapter alone and there were many more throughout the remainder of the audio. It's very unprofessional.

The characters are interesting and quite colorful, but the story is blatantly contrived and predictable. I do appreciate that there are multiple cases woven through the story and all are tied up nicely in the end.

Note: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

[timj26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story and idea for beyond blue agency was great
I like how it was told through different storylines kept it interesting
And although the narrator was good several mistakes were missed in editing
overall based on the story I’ll checkout more by this author
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review

[Julie Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, I did get a bit confused and found I had to really concentrate so I didn't get lost in the story because the story jumped from different characters and different cases. There is a lot going on so it will be a story I will re-listen to again in a few months time, when I have forgotten the story. Liked the plot line and thought it was unusual, not many books focus on helping cops before they go bad, they are either good guys or bad guys. The characters were likable and I like the way that even though they tease and joke with each other when it comes down to it they are there for each other.
Who do police men and women call for help when they are in trouble? A grateful business man has an answer for that question. That is why he is funding the Beyond Blue a private detective agency that just helps the brothers and sisters in blue. They have four operatives working on four different cases from something so simple like a wife filing for divorce by claiming abuse to a crooked lawyer framing policemen to get his clients out of jail. They also tackle the harder cases such as a working out how to pull an under cover agent out before he crosses a line he can't come back from to investigating an ex policeman fired from his job that have far dangerous consequences than first thought. With so much going on it is a good job they have a great boss in Paul Gorman who juggles all the balls in order to hopefully keep his team alive and safe.
I liked the narrator he had a lot of characters to give voices too but the production needed a bit of work as he repeated himself a few times. It was just the odd couple of words every now and again so didn't interfere with the story telling.
I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

[Lori M · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Narration: This was my first book read by Allan Callaway, and I have to say that although he had a wonderful voice, he read too fast to keep up with what was going on. I normally listen to audibles while at work since my job can get repetitive, but this was too intricate for that, then add in the speed he was going and there was no way I could follow. Once home, I had to slow the playback down, which really isn't too big of a deal. There were repeated sentences, skips in the recording, and worse of all there was very distracting background noise.


Story: Some basic thoughts as I listened: there were way too many he/she said, asked, replied. Some sentences could easily have been removed from the story to improve the flow. I felt that it wasn’t ready for audio with a final script edit.

I think this would have been an amazing read! The storyline was a good one that you don’t see every day. It seemed well-written from the story point of view, and once I was able to slow it down, I enjoyed the characters. I’ve not read anything by Austin S. Camacho before, but I’ll be looking for his ebooks. I would still give another audio a shot as well, as long as there was another narrator for it because I enjoyed how things worked and moved, but the narration was just not for me.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Narration: This was my first book read by Allan Callaway, and I have to say that although he had a wonderful voice, he read too fast to keep up with what was going on. I normally listen to audibles while at work since my job can get repetitive, but this was too intricate for that, then add in the speed he was going and there was no way I could follow. Once home, I had to slow the playback down, which really isn't too big of a deal. There were repeated sentences, skips in the recording, and worse of all there was very distracting background noise.


Story: Some basic thoughts as I listened: there were way too many he/she said, asked, replied. Some sentences could easily have been removed from the story to improve the flow. I felt that it wasn’t ready for audio with a final script edit.

I think this would have been an amazing read! The storyline was a good one that you don’t see every day. It seemed well-written from the story point of view, and once I was able to slow it down, I enjoyed the characters. I’ve not read anything by Austin S. Camacho before, but I’ll be looking for his ebooks. I would still give another audio a shot as well, as long as there was another narrator for it because I enjoyed how things worked and moved, but the narration was just not for me.

[emeraldragonlady (Maddie) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Allan must have had some issues with editing the recording. Occasionally throughout the whole story you hear lines like the character is repeating itself.
Other than that the character voices were well done and as usually Austin did an amazing job with the story. 4 cases all wrapped up nicely with twists and turns. I really enjoyed it.

[Ashley Hedden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond Blue was a good read by Austin S. Camacho. In this book a privately funded detective agency that helps police officers in trouble. The novel follows four of the agencies cases that happen to overlap. A team of detectives are pursuing the cases while the agency’s director, Paul Gorman, is pulling the strings and directing the team. I enjoyed reading this book and can’t wait to read more by the author.

[Norma · Rating 4 out of 5]

( Format : Audiobook )
"Some guys are too stupid to take a hint."


Rsview follows

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Beyond Blue, Austin Camacho, author of nine previous mysteries, brings a new twist to the police crime genre. Instead of one protagonist, there are six, all of whom work for an organization dedicated to help the NYC police department take care of problems they don’t seem to be able to handle on their own.

Funded by the Arab father of a 9/11 victim, Beyond Blue Investigations takes on cases such as an officer who has been undercover for too long and one who is falling apart because his wife is threatening to divorce him. They are also investigating a smuggling operation at JFK and a lawyer who has made a career of out getting crooks off by damaging their accusers. The agency’s leader, Paul Gorman, assigns individuals with police backgrounds to investigate these cases.

Camacho expertly interweaves the individual cases bringing all four to a climatic finish. His dialogue is crisp, descriptions are anything but cliched, and he throws readers into the middle of fight scenes with confidence they’ll know whose fist is hitting whose jaw. Another plus of Beyond Blue is that I didn’t detect a single typo. That’s rare no matter who the publisher is. In this case, it’s his own publishing company run with his wife. They also put on Creatures, Crimes and Creativity, an annual mystery and thriller writing conference held near Baltimore. I attended the 2015 version and recommend it for writers and readers both.

The concept of an organization to help the police is original and each of the four stories Camacho creates are original and intriguing, but having multiple protagonists diminishes the reader’s ability to identify with any of them. One gets the idea that the agency’s director is the main character, but we learn little of his background and most of the time all he does is orchestrate the others, a task which drives him to doodling on a yellow pad waiting to hear from his team.

Inevitably with four sub-plots, some work better than the others. I found the ones involving the two female detectives especially well wrought as both characters are smart, brash and fearless.

I confess I had trouble, at first getting into Beyond Blue, which I was reading on my iPad using the Kindle app. It turns out the conversion process from the original eliminated scene breaks which led to my having to take notes so I could follow who was who. Then I discovered this same problem infected the Kindle app version of my latest novel as well. I’m not sure whether that issue occurred on Kindles or just the Kindle app. The Camachos inform me they’re reissuing their books, which will solve that particular problem.

Camacho has recently issued his eleventh novel, Pyramid Deception––the sixth of a series featuring uber detective and troubleshooter Hanibal Jones. I look forward to delving into it in the near future.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the tale of a firm of private investigators who help cops in trouble with everything from family issues to criminal activities that threaten their lives and careers. When cops are in trouble, they can turn to these investigators, many of whom are former cops, that go "beyond" the blue uniform. As I read, I remained continuously eager to see these investigators survive and help their clients. There were some points that I felt could have been expanded on more, such as the threat of the drug plot, and some plots at the end felt a little rushed, such as the fate of an undercover client as well as a relationship between an investigator and her client that became very passionate. Still, the principles these characters stood by were profound, and they existed because of a debt owed to the police. This book is an excellent reminder of what cops are about and why they are here, and in a world with so much negative press and a loss of faith in the police, it is a comforting thought that there might be someone out there who would go out of their way and risk their lives for those who do the same for the American people.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read for cop friendlies. The basic premise of BBI is righting wrongs done to good cops by criminals and even corrupt coppers or simply doing the good job in ways that are a bit sideways. Lots of action and the interwoven plot lines are filled with misdirections and red herrings. LOVED IT!
Wish I could avoid nitpicking the narrator, but he needs to edit better instead of allowing multiple repeated sentences. AND, the word cartage as in hauling products or furniture is not a French word, especially in Brooklyn! Otherwise, he did a decent job, but this book really deserved better.
I hope that this book is the start of a series!
Really happy that I won this audiobook in a giveaway!

[Lynn]

Great action!

Memorable characters, lots of action and villains I enjoyed watching get what's coming to them. All in all a this mystery made for a solid read. Some edge of the seat scenes made this a page turner.

[KathleenL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond Blue was a very enjoyable book. Loved the concept of a dedicated group working behind the scenes and going beyond the "blue" to assist those in need. Love the characters! Loved Ruby on her own...such freedom :) Totally enjoyed the play between Steel n Stone....

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Austin S. Camacho artfully blends four stories that revolve around one agency. With high action and a cast of intriguing characters, Camacho will have you hooked from cover to cover.