Settling in at an exclusive rehab clinic, Dallas PD homicide detective Jeb Quinlin discovers there's a serial killer on the loose—tagging each body with one of AA's famous Twelve Steps.
Clinton Howard Swindle was editor of North Texas' student newspaper, the Campus Chat, in 1968 before being named Outstanding Journalism Graduate. After serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, he worked for the Fort Worth Press and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which led to a position with the Dallas Times Herald.
In 1979 he joined the Dallas Morning News, where he worked as a reporter, assistant metropolitan editor and assistant managing editor for projects before becoming a writer-at-large. In 1986, the News won its first Pulitzer Prize for a project that Swindle edited. Projects led by Swindle would later win two other Pulitzers for the paper.
Swindle was the author of several books, including Once a Hero; Doin' Dirty; America's Condemned: Death Row Inmates in Their Own Words; Trespasses: Portrait of a Serial Rapist; and Deliberate Indifference: A Study of Racial Injustice and Murder. Universal Pictures' Eye See You, released in 2002, was based on his novel Jitter Joint.
Jeb Quinlin is a homicide detective who is hijacked by his estranged wife and is boss - take care of your alcoholism or you will be out of a marriage and out of a job. So he checks into a clinic. Murders start to happen. Jitter Joint is the kind of book that lets me know I am not a real book reviewer. I loved this book and I have no idea why. A real reviewer would know. All I know is that the characters are interesting and the dialogue is ok and the plot is ok but the book grabbed me and from the first page to the last, I felt like I had fallen into someplace fascinating. Also I don't know anyone who has read it who hasn't raved about it.
A perfectly serviceable little cop thriller. It doesn’t stick to the “maniac kills based on the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous” bit as much as I’d hoped, but it’s still decent and decently sleazy regardless.
Audiobook narrated by Richard Ferrone: Very interesting setting for a homocide mystery: a rehab clinic. Easy reading, great characters, smashing ending!