Bury the Past: A Detective Penley Mystery

Bury the Past is the second book in James L’Etoile’s John Penley series. It is a gritty crime thriller that takes place in Solano County, California. The protagonist, a police detective named John Penley, partners up with Paula Newberry, a detective from Internal Affairs. Initially, they investigate the trafficking of street drugs into Sacramento, but quickly their investigation takes a hair-raising turn. They discover that the crime scene has Charles Sherman’s fingerprints in it. Charles Sherman was a crooked cop that Newberry helped put away for a long time in state prison. Sherman has associates outside of prison walls who do all the dirty work for him, namely, killing witnesses who testified against him. He also manages to weasel himself out of prison on a technicality. Before long, both Penley and Newberry have a target painted on their backs. Not only that, but Newberry’s DNA is found at the site of the witnesses’ murders. Now, Newberry must do what she can in order to clear her name and expose the real mastermind of police corruption.

Bury the Past is much more suspenseful than L’Etoile’s first novel, At What Cost. The book is better in almost every way, with a fast and engaging plot that keeps the reader at the edge of their seat, intriguing writing, and superb character development. It’s hard not to like the characters, not only Penley and Newberry but the villain, Charles Sherman himself. The author portrays Sherman as a textbook dirty cop: brutal, vicious, and extremely cunning, using his wit to his advantage to weasel himself out of tricky situations.

All in all, Bury the Past is quite an enjoyable read. If you liked The Force, you will surely enjoy this book.