Before The Cradle Falls

Rating:
Summary: WOW-Great Book!
Review: This is the first book I've read by James F. David. I'm off now to order the other ones. Terrific murder mystery, I was hooked from the first page. Loved the characters, the "McKenzie pool" is pure genius. I'd love to see another book based on the same group of detectives. If you like John Sandford, you'll love this book!

Rating:
Summary: A good effort by a great author
Review: This review is soley for the novel "Before the Cradle Falls." I happen to consider James F. David a superb suspense writer: "Footprints of Thunder," "Fragments," and "Ship of the Damned" were intriquing and engrossing. "Cradle" is, unfortunately, not.

Kyle Sommers is a police detective who, after the death of his daughter, hid within the bottle. Given a second chance, Sommers finds himself heading the investigation of Cradle Robber, a serial killer who murders random children in the night, thinking he is in fact doing them a favor.

But Sommers is not alone in his investigation. There is another man, who appears to have blue skin, and who knows when children are in danger. He has arrived from the future, intent on saving the children of Portland, Oregon...including his own child...

The plot is a bit ludicrous, but so were those of David's previous novels. What "Cradle" lacks is reality; while occasionally suspenseful, and at times frightening, the novel's characters rarely exceed their two-dimensional forms, and the plot is pretty predictable, not to mention cliche. Though for some it may be a brisk, even entertaining read, fans of David's previous works will find it lacking in quality. Every author writes a book of lesser quality at some point in their career; James F. David has done it with this one. While entertaining to a point, "Before the Cradle Falls" is proof that time travel and police procedural don't mix well.