Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Release Date: February 11, 2020
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Not much can make
Detective Betty Rhyzyk flinch. But when forced into therapy, a desk
assignment, and domestic bliss following a terrifying run-in with an
apocalyptic cult, she’s having trouble readjusting to life as it once
was. At home, she struggles to connect with her loving partner, Jackie. At
work, someone has been assassinating confidential informants. To make
matters worse, Betty’s partner seems to be increasingly dependent on the
painkillers he was prescribed for injuries he sustained narrowly
rescuing her.
Betty’s at the point of breaking when she decides
to go rogue, on a chase that will lead her to the dark heart of a drug
cartel terrorizing Dallas, and straight to the crooked cops who plan to
profit from it all.
The Burn is the second installment in author Kathleen Kent's Betty Rhyzyk series. If you read The Dime, or my review, you already know that Dallas Narcotic's Detective Betty Rhyzyk experienced a nightmare situation when she was kidnapped by a mentally unstable woman who tried to brain wash Betty into joining her family and taunted her with bible verses. As the result, Betty isn't exactly in a good place. She can't run which she's relied on to relieve stress because her leg is still healing. Her relationship with her life partner Jackie is on edge, and ready to walk away.
She's angry all the time, and would love nothing more than to drink herself into oblivion. Adding to the stress, her work partner who people call Riot, Seth Dutton, is acting strange and keeping secrets, and may be into hard narcotics which honestly comes with the job for a lot of cops. She has a new boss, Marshall Maclin, that doesn't appreciate her work, and ends up putting her on suspension and desk duty. Drug dealers are being shot, and carved up, and bible verses are being left behind. One of the villains thought responsible is a man known as the Knife.
To top things off, Betty hasn't been forgotten by one Evangeline Roy who disappeared after Jackie escaped captivity. Betty's temper is short and her tongue is sharp. Rage is simmering just beneath the surface ready to unload on the first person who messes with her. She has lost her happy, and then some. Even though she is forced into therapy, Betty's life is her job, and her job is her life, regardless of how much pain it might cause Jackie. Ordered mandatory therapy and desk duty aside, she’s going to have to get creative to solve the crime, and be suspicious of everyone, including her partner.
This book is super gritty--drug cartels, addiction, PTSD, homelessness, and more. I would say that this book is extremely slow in comparison to The Dime and hope the finale is much, much better. We do get a bit more background at what happened to Betty's brother who was also a Narcotics cop in New York. There's also the usual suspects like James Earle who ends up roped into some of Betty's plans.
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