Sympathy Between Humans Book

On the streets of Minneapolis, Sarah has worked everything from vice to missing persons. But six months after the death of a small-town criminal in rural Minnesota, Sarah is still protecting the identity of a killer. And now a zealous D.A.’s investigator has come to town, determined to make an arrest. With her ex-partner half a world away and her husband in prison, only Sarah remains to face the consequences of last fall.

Surrounded by colleagues who know her to be the suspect in a murder, Sarah keeps her demons at bay by involving herself in the troubles of strangers. Seventeen-year-old Aidan Hennessy was banished from his family by his father. Now Aidan’s twin sister is desperately searching for the brother she hasn’t seen in years. Although the case is out of Sarah’s jurisdiction, she sees a reflection of herself in the troubled, damaged family, and agrees to investigate.

As she probes into their tangled history, Sarah begins to realize that the mystery of the Hennessys runs deeper than it appears. Caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with the investigator who wants to end her career, crossing one ethical line after another, Sarah increasingly fears that a misstep on her part will end not only in her disgrace, but in the death of one of those she has promised herself to protect.

Publishers Weekly

As Compton's first-rate sequel to her impressive debut (The 37th Hour) begins, Minneapolis detective Sarah Pribek of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Department struggles to forget the incident that left her ex-partner in exile in Europe and her husband in prison. Unsentimental, often unyielding, Pribek works her cases: playing decoy for vice, saving the life of a drowning immigrant boy, tracking down a doctor practicing without a license and making inquiries about a teenage girl's runaway twin brother, all while an ambitious district attorney, among others, believes that Pribek, not her husband, killed rapist-murderer Royce Stewart. Like the first Pribek novel, this is more than a simple police procedural, despite its "just the facts" narrative. Parallels between the life of the missing boy and the detective's own adolescence prompt painful memories, while Pribek's evolving relationship with the unlicensed doctor, a wheelchair-bound tenement hero far more attractive and complicated than her informant suggested, prompts her to re-examine the limitations of the law. This multilayered, touching tale of crimes and misdemeanors prompts reader and detective alike to calculate "the mathematics of the human psyche." If it only occasionally achieves the emotional impact of its predecessor, it confirms without a doubt that Compton is a gifted creator of flawed, believable characters-foremost among them her hard-nosed, warmhearted detective. Agent, Barney Karpfinger. (Mar. 1) Forecast: Compton is building up a following among thriller readers who like their suspense tempered with a little compassion. Expect her readership to continue to grow at a healthy rate. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.