Blind spots by Patrick Garry is a highly entertaining and captivating police and courtroom drama that presents what happens from various perspectives, filling in at least some of the “blind spots” that often go unseen and unconsidered by the legal system. While the novel is ostensibly primarily about the story of rent collector Milo Krantz, who works for a slum lord, the novel is also about the ethical and moral decisions faced by the other main characters as they search for answers and lead Krantz. before justice. .

Blind spots it begins with Detective Gunther Mulvaney at home, “absorbed in the morning paper”. Her wife, Jessie, likes to be told about her cases, as she considers herself a crime buff who carries around voluminous notebooks in which she writes down her theories about the cases Gunther investigates.”

Gunther is preoccupied with his own thoughts, as he recalls a case that was recently closed, but started three years ago. He hadn’t told his wife about this particular case, thinking to himself that he had sworn to silence about it. But he feels a sense of guilt, which he considers “a handicap.” As the author says, expressing Gunther’s thoughts, “Those who feel guilty never get promoted.”

The first chapter of Blind spots then he begins to get into the case that has haunted Gunther for the last three years. He had received a call about the murder investigation of a mother and her three children who “had been shot to death in an upstairs duplex in the Camden area, a area known for its drug dealing, dilapidated homes and gang warfare.” .

The person who shot and killed the entire family was quickly identified. He was a 12-year-old boy, who got the gun from somewhere, but apparently wouldn’t say where or tell the police who gave it to him. The police had been ordered to find out who had given the boy the gun and to severely punish that person.

The case becomes a high-profile one, as the district attorney pressures the captain of the police force to track down the source where the gun came from. The captain wants the people of the Camden area to be pressured, on the theory that if enough pressure is applied, “someone will eventually scream.”

Gunther fairly quickly arrests a suspect who seems to fit the possible fate of the person the police are looking for. The man is Milo Krantz, and he collects rent from a slum lord, Howard Towley. He has also been found in possession of illegal weapons and has a history of committing petty crimes and harassing tenants for rent money, sometimes even threatening them.

Early on, Krantz talks to Gunther and makes a somewhat convincing argument that he is being made the “scapegoat”. As Gunther investigates further, raw witnesses can be found that corroborate that Krantz is not a nice person, that he had threatened several people, and that there have been stories of him dealing guns.

But, there are others that give Gunther reason to stop and hesitate, like a girl he sees when he goes to investigate where Krantz lives, with her pet dog. Krantz, according to the girl, has let the dog live in his house, taking care of it. He has also let the girl and her family live secretly, rent-free, in an apartment in one of Towley’s buildings. Gunther begins to see another side of Krantz and realizes that perhaps he is not as mean and evil as he once thought.

the second chapter of Blind spots it features another main character, Judge Donna Davis, who was generally considered a liberal judge, but in Krantz’s case, had for some reason set him high bail, $200,000. In other chapters of Blind spotsmuch more of Davis’s life and the reasons why he feels he has to deal with the Krantz case harshly is revealed, to make an example of him.

Krantz goes from telling Gunther that he is being made a “scapegoat” and talking about the “Gestapo tactics” of the police to saying that he would represent himself in court. He was silent when he faced Judge Davis, not even telling her if he was not guilty. Later, Krantz, for reasons of his own, admits it all.

The lives of Gunther Mulvaney, Milo Krantz and Donna Davis are inextricably linked, and the legal system demands a speedy resolution of the case and brings to justice the person who supplied the boy with the gun, one way or another. Mulvaney was proud that he had never sent an innocent person to jail sooner, but with Krantz, he begins to have doubts and develops a powerful sense of guilt that things are not what they seem on the surface.

Krantz may well be hated in his own community and guilty of threatening people to collect rent; but Mulvaney realizes that he might not be guilty of supplying the boy with the gun. Judge Davis, for her part, strives to be fair and honest in her rulings, but she is married to a power-hungry politician who has influence in the case.

Thought Blind spots it is relatively short, at 237 pages, it packs an emotional punch. It’s a powerful story about how America’s justice system, in its rush to find the culprits of certain crimes, sometimes sets off innocent people while the real culprits go free. Blind spots is a captivating novel that people who love to read mysteries, thrillers, and crime dramas will love it and want to add it to their personal libraries.