Thomas Black left the Seattle police force ten years ago because he didn't want to have to kill. Now he works as a private eye. His tenant, Kathy, begs him to look for a friend of hers who has gone missing, leaving her poet husband and three-year-old daughter behind. Thomas agrees, and begins investigating Melissa's background. During the course of his search, two women are murdered and, not too surprisingly, Thomas gets involved with some unsavory characters.

It became clear partway through the book that Melissa's relationship with her family was key and would lead to the reason for her disappearance and the murders. I would say the plot was so-so: a little unusual, but not a strength. The style was better than just competent; not fabulous, as the cover blurbs would have you believe, but easy to stick with, with very few false notes. I didn't really see the significance of the title in the story, other than the fact that several characters spent some time being wet.

Some of the characters were pretty odd: Melissa, her husband, and other family members were drawn with apparent care but still incoherently. Thomas reminded me a bit of Robert Crais's Elvis Cole, with his attitude and remarks, but has his own developing identity. Kathy was nicely sketched and will clearly be a regular, as will at least one or two other characters, I suspect. Overall, I liked it pretty well, especially for the first of a series, and I will definitely try the next one. ( )

THE RAINY CITY is the first book in Earl Emerson's Thomas Black mystery series. Thomas Black lives in Seattle - a la "The Rainy City" - with his renter, Kathy. Kathy is a first-year law student and she rents the basement of Black's house. It is Kathy who talks Black into investigating the disappearance of her friend Melissa and the subsequent "kidnapping" of Melissa's daughter Angel. Angel is abducted but she's abducted by Melissa's parents, and everyone knows that they have her. Angel's father is pretty much a wet noodle and does nothing to try to get Angel back.

Along the way of Thomas and Kathy's investigations, two people are killed, a pimp is knifed in the leg, and the missing body from a supposed twenty-year-old suicide is uncovered. There is definitely no loss for action going on in this book.

While I thought the plot was just so-so, I loved the characters in this novel. Well, I loved Thomas and Kathy. Melissa's husband Burton was a little hard to figure out. I wasn't really sure what Emerson was trying to do with him, but I kept feeling that he didn't quite finish what he started with Burton. Burton was, as I said, a "wet noodle." He let people walk all over him. And Emerson couldn't have gotten more stereotypical with him...Burton is a poet. Several people throughout the book make the comment "don't underestimate Burton." However, there isn't any action on Burton's part that justifies that statement. Melissa is the character in the end who finds her gumption.

Now Thomas and Kathy on the other hand are rich, strong characters. Thomas is unique in that he rides a bike - no not a motorcycle; I said a bike, an honest-to-God ten-speed bicycle. And Thomas is along the lines of an Elvis Cole or a Lincoln Perry when it comes to sarcastic humor. Of course, that is a trait I find attractive in my P.I. characters, so that endeared Thomas to me right away.

The element of Thomas's character that really drove it all home for me, though, is the reason he left the police force. Thomas shot a kid who was high on drugs and trying to run him down with a car. Thomas never was able to deal with killing the boy, and he ultimately left the force and doesn't like to handle a gun any longer. While I don't mind characters wielding guns in my books - wouldn't be much to the crime in crime fiction if they didn't - I don't like protagonist characters who seem unfazed by the violence associated with killing. For me as a reader, that indicates a lack of depth.

Kathy is a fun character. She's not afraid to be different; she speaks her mind; she isn't afraid to walk in on Thomas in the bath...

As I said, the plot was average to me. In the midst of the book I was turning pages because I was very intrigued to find out what was going to happen, but then the conclusion was rather flat. I was anxiously waiting for something more dramatic to happen with all the conflict and foreshadowing throughout the rising action. So when the conclusion came, I was asking myself, "really? That's it?" However, I can assure you that I will be continuing this series because I want to follow the characters. Emerson did a great job of reeling me in with Thomas and Kathy! ( )