TUNNEL VISION

A data analyst consulting with the Chicago Police Department is hamstrung between two cases that pull her in very different directions.

Maude Kaminski isn’t a police officer or even a full-time employee of the CPD. So, she’s surprised and dismayed when she’s appointed to a Criminal Networks Group task force created to prevent Brajen Krol, who runs the Greenpoint Crew for Brooklyn’s Polish Mafia, from taking over the fentanyl traffic in the Windy City. The only compensation when she’s assigned as an undercover operative who’ll take photos during the Taste of Polonia festival, which everyone assumes Krol will attend, is that Gavin McCullom, the intelligence analyst she’s paired with, is quite a hunk. Even before the four-day festival begins, Kaminski’s life gets a lot more complicated when she learns that Sheila Johnson, who was found dead two months ago in the tent city where she lived, had with her a backpack that had belonged to Kaminski’s brother, Michael, who vanished when she lost him in a crowd 20 years ago, when he was 2. Work is work, but family is family, except when family is work. Kaminski’s determination to track down her missing brother seriously compromises her commitment to the task force, and her superiors pull her off the assignment. When she gets wind that Michael may still be alive and working for Brajen Krol, however, she offers to work full time for the CPD if her boss will give her another undercover gig as an addict who can help make connections that will ultimately implicate Krol without endangering Michael. That decision turns out to create serious ripples in every conceivable direction.

The second in Church’s Shadows of Chicago series is violent, dark, and steadily absorbing.