Can’t Go Back (Devlin & Falco)

A house fire; Allison Boothe and her daughter are dead inside; her husband, Logan, is unconscious outside. So starts Can’t Go Back. Detectives Kerri Devlin and Luke Falco, partners in bed as well as on the force, quickly decide that the fire was deliberately set; mother and daughter were murdered.

Suspects soon mount, starting with the husband. Logan was a former undercover narcotics cop whose contact with criminals may have been cozier than it should have been. Has he crossed the line again, with disastrous consequences?

Then, there are the Boothes’ parents. Allison’s mother is convinced Logan was smothering her daughter, cutting her off from friends and family. Logan’s mother dotes on her son, and she blames Allison for the collapse of her son’s marriage.

And the neighbors. Do they know more than they are telling? The mystery’s origin may, however, lie in Detective Falco’s past, when he too was an undercover narcotics cop, serving under the same lieutenant as Boothe.

This police procedural moves at a steady pace, as the investigators delve into the crime and explore their own developing relationship. A clever denouement brings the story to an unexpected and exciting conclusion.