Long Beach, California, homicide detective Danny Beckett is pouring the weekend’s first shot of vodka when the call comes in: Elizabeth Williams, a teacher at nearby Warren High School, has been brutally murdered in her classroom. When Danny arrives at the school, the blood-spattered crime scene turns even his veteran stomach. What could this young woman have done to make her the target of such a violent attack? And what is the significance of the victim’s left hand, taken by the killer as a grisly trophy?
Beckett delves into the case with his usual tenacious cool, yet as he pieces together the facts, long-suppressed anguish from his own past rises up with stunning force. His hunt for the murderer soon morphs into a personal quest for atonement as he struggles to come to terms with the loss of his wife and family.
A King of Infinite Space is a riveting crime novel that serves as a memorable introduction for Danny Beckett to the ranks of fiction’s favorite hardened detectives.
The son of a policeman, Tyler Dilts grew up wanting to follow in his father's footsteps. Along the line, his career goals changed, but he never lost his interest in the daily work of homicide detectives. Now an instructor at California State University in Long Beach, his writing has appeared in "The Los Angeles Times," "The Chronicle of Higher Education," "The Best American Mystery Stories," and in numerous other publications. He is the author of the Long Beach Homicide series featuring Detective Danny Beckett, the most recent of which, "A Cold and Broken Hallelujah," is now available.
This is the second Long Beach Homicides novel I read by Tyler Dilts, but the first that he wrote and published. A King of Infinite Space takes its title from Hamlet: "O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."
Long Beach homicide detective Danny Beckett definitely has bad dreams. His wife Megan had died several years previously in a grisly crash sandwich between two trucks, and his homicide cases have an eerie way of messing with his past and involving him personally (at least in the two novels I read, the other being A Cold and Broken Hallelujah).
It's good to think that noir has a future in Southern California, where it was born under the skillful pens of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Tyler Dilts teaches writing at Cal State Long Beach. He comes to the genre with an extensive background and a rich frame of reference. In addition, he has such a good ear for the Long Beach area that I feel like dropping in at some of the restaurants he mentions and checking them out.
Beckett's partner in homicide is the luscious Jen Tanaka, a black belt in aikido. There is definitely something in the works between the two, and I have no doubt that it will come out in some future Dilts title. That's well an good. I'm willing to wait it out.
I finished this novel in one sitting, as it was very a compelling read. That being said, I had figured out who the killer was, the minute he was introduced into the story, about chapter two or three. And this was primarily because of the way the killer acted in the killing scene. Still, a good read. I'm wondering how the next story in the series will go, since something happened to the lead character at the end of the novel. Here is a great review that explains the novel better: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3.5 stars, and recommended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
If you're a fan of the detective/PI-typed mystery, I highly recommend that you read Tyler Dilts' The King of Infinite Space. If you follow my book reviews, you know this is a genre I tend to read a lot of, so I'm pretty particular about this type of book. And after reading the entire book in a day (thanks, insomnia) I am shocked that this is Dilts' first book.
Beth Williams, an English teacher, is brutally murdered one night in her classroom. Long Beach Detective Danny Beckett and his partner, Jen Tanaka, begin investigating the crime that doesn't seem to have any suspects, until suddenly, a number of possible murderers materializes. Beckett and Tanaka try to figure out what happened to Beth while Beckett is struggling with his own personal demons, and Tanaka is trying to keep one of her martial arts students on the straight and narrow, which isn't proving too easy.
I really enjoyed the main characters in this book. The dialogue seemed authentic; sometimes books try to throw too many police procedural terms into the mix to prove their authenticity but wind up seeming fake. I worried that Beckett's personal issues might prove too overwhelming for the plot, but they served as an intriguing counterpoint to the action, and deepened the dimensions of the character. While ultimately I figured out who done it, it was tremendously interesting the way the discovery of the murderer unfolded. I hope Dilts intends to write more books, especially those featuring Beckett and Tanaka. Seriously, read this book.
A solid police procedural set in Long Beach, California. Well told and well written, a meat and potatoes mystery. This really feels like the beginning of a long series, which means that we are only getting the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to character. It's what the author should do, but it's always frustrating when you know you have to get through three or four books to really dig deep into the characters and the relationships. It's true with McBain, Sjowall & Wahloo, and most procedurals, so Dilts is in good company.
With all the cop shows and whodunits on television, it's a real challenge to surprise the reader, as we have become pretty familiar with the tricks of the trade. Hell, Scooby-Doo taught us to keep our eye on the least suspicious character ("And I would have succeeded if not for those meddling kids!"). That said, I'm not the one to judge the mystery element of the story. I saw some stuff coming, but overall it worked for me. Your experience will be unique, I am sure.
I read for atmosphere, detail, and character. The best of crime fiction can ask unique moral questions, comment on social issues, and immerse you in a new environment. And this novel, and I'm hoping the subsequent series that will follow, has all of these elements in spades. Looking forward to the next book.
Tyler Dilts' Long Beach based detective/police procedural novels were recommended to me by a friend well known to the Goodreads community, the prolific and very wise Jim Paris. He seldom leads me wrong with his recommendations, no matter how outre they might seem. Having said that, I've read the first two books in the series, and have yet to share Jim's enthusiasm. There were things I liked about this, the first of the three in the series, but there were more things I didn't like.
What I really I didn't care for was the book's predictability. The murder that starts the protagonist's investigations was especially gruesome even by modern standards, and was described in what could almost be described as sadistic detail. The protagonist's main partner is a near-comic statement of Political Correctness (a female Japanese detective with a black belt in aikido who has a heart of gold and does community work with troubled teens). And the murderer, who was pretty obvious from very early on, is so completely devoid of the slightest trace of redeeming characteristics that he is one-dimensional.
The other thing that bothered me is the pace of the book was off. It was almost as if Dilts got so wrapped up in laying out red herrings and wallowing in the procedural aspects of the investigation that he suddenly remembered he had to stop writing, and resolved the pending issues, like whodunit for example, in the last five pages.
On the positive side, he does write quite well, as befits his profession. I will continue with the series to see if the material gets any better.
After a teacher is found stabbed to death in her classroom, the detectives investigating the case grimly suspect it is the work of a serial killer. Less than 100 pages in, I already had an idea about who the killer was, and without many twists, turns, or surprises woven into the plot, my suspicions were correct. This first installment in the series takes place in my hometown of Long Beach, and follows Detective Danny Beckett, who’s still haunted by the fiery car accident that killed his wife. The author—the son of a cop and professor at Cal State Long Beach—follows the tried and true formula of a damaged cop willing to break the rules in order to catch the bad guy. There’s no real tension to speak of, no frills, and it’s pretty straight forward, but a solid effort for a debut novel nonetheless. I never felt that the dialogue was stilted or the pacing was uneven, and although it was difficult to discern the year in which this was meant to take place (it was published in 2009-2010, but there are references to pagers and video stores), it didn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the book at all. And it was fun to visualize local streets and eateries, along with familiar landmarks mentioned throughout. I’ll be interested to see how the author develops this series.
I don't read too many crime novels, but this one kept me interested from beginning to end. The characters are very real and the action is strong. It is also extremely realistic. Dilts has some fantastic descriptions in the book and has obviously done his homework on how detectives work.
This is the first book by this particular author, and it has to do with Homicide Detective Danny Beckett of the Long Beach Police Department and a murder case he and his partner are investigating. An instructor at the high school has been brutally slain with a special type of knife, and the killer took her hand as a trophy. There are three or four suspects from the beginning, including a former man the teacher dated. Beckett and this man have something in common : both have lost their wives in the last few years. Yet it begins to look as if this mild-mannered man may be the killer of this woman and the one who comes after. But why? Well, there one would have to go further and figure out why the second woman was killed, and what the killer may gain from both of the deaths (besides his serial killer trophies). I also though the title of the book very clever; the title comes from one of Hamlet's lines in Shakespeare's play and it really fit the story to quite a degree. I enjoyed this story; however, it is really irritating to see the publisher, Amazon, left the second 's' off the word canvass all though the book. I don't know if it is the proofreader who checks these things or what, but surely we could all do better. The author is a very intelligent person, so I am surprised he didn't catch the error. I hope Mr. Dilts will write another book if he has not done so already.
This is my second Tyler Dilts book and before I get into the review I just want to acknowledge that Dilts' book titles are fantastic, lifted from brilliant quotes tied to the theme, and his music tastes are impeccable. If I ever write a book I want Tyler Dilts to name it and make me a mix tape.
Detective Danny Beckett is a thoughtful and diligent cop, haunted by the violence he has seen on the job and the loss of his wife. He can barely sleep for the nightmares and settles himself a little to frequently with vodka. Neither of these things are out of control, but you get the sense that Beckett is on the precipice and only the job and his partner, Detective Jen Tanaka, keep him from giving in.
Generally in a mystery/crime novel I get pretty disappointed if I can identify the killer in the first interview. While I think Dilts played his hand too early, this isn't a book which relies on the collar for the drama. The characters, especially Beckett, are so well written that it is the methodical, procedural working of the case that sells the story. The work is hard, slow, and takes its toll. I think it is easy to render a detective who stands as witness for the victim as a sap, or a tired trope of the genre, but Detective Danny Beckett's portrayal feels sincere. There is an honesty and integrity in the Long Beach Homocide novels which makes them well worth recommending.
Danny Beckett and his partner Jen Tanaka investigate the murder of a Long Beach high school teacher that has all the hallmarks of a possible serial killer. This book read like any number of TV police procedural crime shows, down to the easy-to-guess ending. Flashy crime, angst-ridden protagonist, bit-by-bit revelation of the primary's back story. Unfortunately, I really couldn't connect to any of the characters, though I liked the martial arts teacher background of Tanaka. The story was extremely slow-paced, though I suppose it's no different from a lot of TV shows or books that have the first episode focus on building up the picture of the characters and locale.
What I really enjoyed was the setting, because it featured many places I am familiar with in my home city Long Beach. The high school was of course fictional, but the closest one in the area described is probably Wilson High School where my nephew went. All the locations were places I was familiar with, so I enjoyed that aspect of the book. It remains to be seen whether this author has legs, and I might continue with the series just to find out, but I think I won't be missing anything if I don't.
Gosh, as far as crime novels go this was incredibly boring. I can't understand on what basis this is rated as high as it is.
By about halfway through, nothing of note had happened and at that stage, I guessed that nothing of note was really going to happen in the second half of the book either. No tension was built at... it felt like a meek meander through a whodunnit saga. We never really find out the whole story of Danny and Megan, the side storyline with Jen and her aikido student (Rudy?) is a bit of a fizzler, Danny's alcoholism is left bubbling to the side, there's not a lot of gore, there's definitely no sex... Easy to read, but dull as hell.
The title, a reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet, makes the book sound like it's got a lot more depth to it than it actually has. Other than Beth, the first victim, having the entire works of Shakespeare on her bookshelf, there's really no link to it at all.
Great read, and I have already started on the second book in the series.
The characters are well formed, the words well chosen, and it's very easy to feel like you're in the main character's head. I finished it in one day because I didn't want to stop reading.
It didn't hurt that I was a CSULB student ages ago and grew up near Long Beach, so the locales were all familiar. I felt like I was back home again.
My favorite part? It was a hard choice, but I fell madly in love with "He left no tone unsterned." Brilliant.
The only reason to keep reading this "who done it" is to see if you are right. I figured it out as soon as the character was introduced. I won't give away the identity of the killer here, but I am pretty sure you will be sorry if you waste your time on this novel. I am sorry I did. It includes about every cliche that you will find in detective fiction.
Danny Beckett is a homicide detective in the Long Beach P. D. in California who is still trying to come to terms with the death of his wife, who was killed in a road traffic collision. He tries to function as normal but resorts to Grey Goose vodka and orange juice to try and subdue the pain. He and his partner Tanaka are called upon to investigate the brutal death of a female teacher, Elizabeth Williams,in her own classroom. This is the first in the series of Tyler Dilts novels to feature Danny Beckett and I thoroughly enjoyed this Police procedural thriller. The novel is a real page turner and even when the investigation stalls there is still enough going on to keep you glued to the page. Danny has his demons to contend with and his female partner is a great foil and tries to help him keep it together when she can. There is a great chemistry between the pair which Dilts conveys expertly through the nuances of his writing. It’s not all doom and gloom though and there is also a lot of dark cop style humour on display which involves the rest of the cops that make up the task force. The troubled cop as protagonist can be a bit of a cliched character but In this case Dilts adds just enough originality that Beckett comes across as both driven and dedicated and his shortcomings real, in that he finds himself drawn to the heartbreak of the victims relatives and friends as he appears to share their loss. I so enjoyed this novel that I’ve downloaded all four in the series and started the second already.
Danny Beckett is damaged goods, definitely residing on the “dent” side of the scratch-and-dent aisle. The major crack in his psyche occurred about two years prior when his wife died in a horrendous auto accident. Although Danny was in no way responsible for that accident, knowledge gained after her death has led him to blame himself for her being in her car on that particular road at that particular time. All he has now are nightly, traumatic dreams, his job as a Long Beach, CA, homicide detective, and his Grey Goose with MinuteMaid.
On the evening our story opens, Danny has just put his first Screwdriver to his lips when his pager goes off. A teacher at the high school across the street from his apartment has been found hacked to death in her classroom. And “hacked to death” is not a figure of speech here. She has sustained over 100 blows to her abdomen and genital areas, blows delivered by a machete-like blade. And her left hand is missing, severed when she tried to defend herself from the first blow, a blow that bisected her heart and killed her before she hit the floor.
Danny and his partner, Jennifer Tanaka, have thousands of fingerprints in that classroom but no creditable trace evidence, just blade tracks. As they and their team work to piece together Beth Williams’ life, both recent and past, trying to identify motive and trying to unearth probable suspects, upper echelon politics and the media hamper them at every turn and even derail them on several occasions.
But Danny’s mental state hampers them even more, starting when he learns that the murdered woman was one of his dead wife’s friends. He knows she looks familiar, but then she did work on the same street he travels daily. However, when he finds her name in his wife’s address book while looking for something else, he is startled. Then when he finds her picture in their wedding album, his guilt over his wife’s death is compounded. Here is just one more thing about his wife’s life that she kept from him. And it complicates the case and his involvement in it.
Danny’s emotional stability comes increasingly into question as his compounded guilt and pain make him unable to control his words or rein in his rage with any regularity. He is, quite frankly, emotionally and professionally hanging on by the smallest of threads. But his instincts as an investigator are still working just fine.
Danny twists and turns the puzzle pieces repeatedly, looking for what they’ve missed. Those cop instincts, as well as the evidence, tell him that the alibis of the three persons of interest are sound and that not one of them has the necessary motive for this particular crime. Danny knows there’s another person in play somewhere, somehow, and more rocks just need to be turned over to flush the psycho out.
However, the mayor and the deputy chief, for political reasons, need an arrest yesterday, so to speak. So they force the team into that arrest. And, as you can imagine, the wrong reasons yield seriously wrong results and an ensuing cover-up. Risking dismissal from their jobs, Danny and Jen breach the cover-up and continue their search for the real killer.
Tyler Dilts has penned a well-crafted and riveting mystery. He reveals Danny’s backstory slowly, as it pertains to the incidents at hand rather than as an info dump. In so doing, the events, as they occur, are made more dramatic, more realistic, and more enlightening as to the identity of the murderer. And because the story is told from Danny’s POV, the reader knows no more at any given time than he does, making it a true mystery for the reader to solve.
Now that doesn’t mean that the reader can’t see what’s coming before Danny and Jen do sometimes. And that fact doesn’t mean that the author’s efforts are formulaic and predictable either. They are not. It is simply a matter of Tyler Dilts’ skill at word structure and manipulation that allows the reader just a brief second of terror-filled omniscience before the character takes the blow.
In this debut novel and first in his Long Beach Homicide series, Dilts leads us by logic and reason to a creature ruled by illogic and insanity. He ends the tale with a serious twist but not a cliffhanger. He leaves us with several hooks that can lead to future entries in the series. But it is hard to tell if he leaves Danny in a better place than when he started or a worse one. Methinks it’s a little bit of the first and a whole lot of the second, but that’s what a second book is meant to resolve.
Haunted and guilt-ridden by the tragic death of his wife and their unborn child, Detective Danny Beckett is in limbo, taking refuge in the routine of his job and alcohol. The brutal murder of a teacher—who he eventually learns had ties to his past—gives his life a new incentive.
There are familiar aspects to this novel. But Dilts manages to lift this above a routine police procedural and into something more literary. Though I targeted the killer early on, I was still intrigued by the rapport between Beckett, his partner, Jen, and the other members of their team, relationships with other characters, the pace of the whole, which kept me turning pages.
I’m looking forward to reading more from Tyler Dilts.
Police procedural crime fiction is all about the cops isn't it? Harry Bosch, Lucas Davenport and Harry Hole are modern examples of brilliantly constructed protagonists that carry their books by the sheer force of their unique personalities. They either jump off the pages in some way or they don't. Tyler Dilts debut mystery/thriller introducing Long Beach California police detectives Danny Beckett and his partner Jennifer Tanaka belong in this elite group of compelling fictional police detectives who keep you turning the pages and buying their books. Why exactly, read this book and find out. I highly recommend it.
I really loved this book. Tyler did a superb job of creating the world of a cop and leading us through it with his main character Danny Beckett. Beckett has real concerns, life, breath, and humanity... all things that really build the depth of the novel and give backbone to the action here.
Dilts kept things moving with tight, visual dialogue and characters making moves on every page. I was blown away by this book! Read it for yourself and see!
I borrowed this from Kindle Prime because I got the third in this series as a Kindle First selection - I hate starting in the middle of a series! Excellent police mystery. Moved along quickly (I read it in 7 days) and really held my interest. Lots of background in this book about Detective Beckett so I'm glad I started with these one. Am looking forward to #2! If you enjoy modern-day murder mysteries, I highly recommend this one.
Loved the relationship between Danny & his partner, Jen, and Danny's sarcastic, sometimes funny, asides throughout the story. They helped define his character. Lastly, as a former resident of Long Beach, I especially enjoyed the many references to old haunts & landmarks in that fair city. It was a pleasant stroll down Memory Lane.
It's not often these days that I can literally read a book in one sitting, but I did with this one. It's short, fast moving, with an engrossing whodunnit type mystery, an interesting setting, and a lead character to pull for. Recommended.
Although not my favorite genre (detective/mystery fiction), this is a fine first novel, worth reading especially for anyone who lives in or knows Long Beach.